A Weird Sandwich
Hi John.
You know, I like how the delay gets longer and longer.
I know.
Okay.
I'm glad it's not just me.
It was usually like doing things when it's not like I'm just sitting here waiting.
I'm in the middle of doing stuff.
What you doing, John?
The way I picture it is somebody says, John, you take a big, deep breath.
Hello.
First, I got to like finish what I'm doing and then unmute myself and then say something.
Daniel Breslin writes, airport express home app support is just for Siri integration.
For example, quote, play the album reputation in the kitchen and dining room.
Quote, I have no idea what that album is.
Don't blame me.
Hopefully.
Oh, okay.
That makes sense.
Hopefully with more features in the future, like a play pause from the home app, resume playback as part of automation or something along those lines.
i should have put this other one first though this is on the topic of what the heck does it mean to have home kit support in the airport express i cut this entire thing out of the show because it was boring then why are people writing in about it i don't know i guess they listen live no you didn't cut it out it was in there no there was a period where we were like where we were like kind of speculating like wait does it mean that it can be a home kit hub and what does it mean to be a home kit hub and we didn't know what we were talking about so i cut out the whole thing yeah but the question was asked we just we just didn't have our answer so here are the answers
Let's just move on rather than discuss whether or not we need to move on.
Donovan Buchanan writes, John brought up the question of what does it mean for an airport express to be a home hub?
This should have been first.
Like you said, John, just like some smart devices like the Philips Hue need a hub, a home hub is a dedicated device to handle all HomeKit related functions.
I'm going to cut this too.
Okay, cool.
Because it's answering a question that we cut from the show.
No, the question was in there, just not the answer.
Okay.
I really don't care one way or the other, so I'll let you two duke it out.
All right.
No one cares about HomeKit.
It was informative.
It was informative to me.
This is a really narrow thing.
What does it mean to be a HomeKit hub in the context of the Airport Express?
Now we're going to be sentenced to forever get answers to this question because they're going to be like, 17 shows ago, John, ask what it meant to be a HomeKit hub.
Oh, I'm here to tell you this is what it means to be a HomeKit hub.
We're going to be told what it means for the Airport Express to be a HomeKit hub for the rest of our lives now.
But it's hard to get people to even care about HomeKit, let alone what does it mean for the Airport Express to be a HomeKit?
People care about answering a question they heard asked and not answered on this podcast.
That's the issue here.
It has nothing to do with HomeKit or Airport Express.
Okay.
Oh, my word.
All right.
I love you, too.
So let's start, wink, with some follow-up.
No, okay.
Michael Smith writes that HandyPrint runs on a Mac and serves up AirPrint services to your network or an attached printer.
And Michael says he's used it for years.
We'll put a link in the show notes.
Apparently, there's also something called Printopia.
We'll put a link in the show notes.
And also Printer Pro.
And guess what?
We'll put a link in the show notes.
And this is within the context of, hey, I want to be able to print via AirPrint to something that maybe does not actually support AirPrint.
And so there's some options for you if you don't want to spend several hundred dollars on a new printer like I just did.
Yeah.
uh but as in with all these cases printing is never enough because if you have a printer thing with that also has a scanner like i was in this mode for a while where everybody could print to it but to scan you had to unplug it physically plug it into something else and scan like all these things that let you wirelessly print to it including obviously the air print things tend not to let you wirelessly scan or wirelessly fax so
It's always, you know, and if you have to unplug to do those operations, it's not much of a win.
So that's why I eventually went down to the single computer doing it.
That said, I have been looking at printers since your discussions.
I've looked at the links to the printers that you guys gave last week and Googling around and stuff.
Yeah.
I think I'm going to wait to see what the supported printer list is for Mojave.
I don't think that document is up at Apple site.
I should look at them.
They have like the beta documents, right?
In a separate section.
But anyway, once Mojave comes out, I'll check out that list and maybe shop for something.
I still, I haven't done the thing which I really need to do, which is get out of tape measure and make my sort of facsimile printer out of no, not, not that kind of facsimile out of a cardboard box.
That is the dimensions of the printer and put that cardboard box somewhere just to see what is it going to be like to have this thing.
If it's too huge and dominates the room, I might have to reconsider.
But I'm definitely looking at those fancy HP all-in-one laser thingies.
I mean, again, I love mine so far.
Although I will say I was scanning something that was physically large, which I would rather not disclose exactly what it was.
And it did not even come close to fitting on my scanner.
So I suddenly was longing for Marco's 40-inch scanner or whatever it was you said you had.
It's 11 by 17, and it's cheaper than all the things you guys are talking about.
Fair enough.
And it comes with a free printer below it.
All right.
Dan Brigland.
I'm so sorry, Dan.
Dan B writes, in regards to Marco's comments on this week's podcast about Apple not needing to get back into the Wi-Fi router game, there's one very strong asset, which Apple has, the reputation.
I, like many, have placed almost unmitigated trust in Apple to host and service my digital life.
While I am an evangelist of Eero, and I truly love my Eero Mesh Network, quick aside, they have sponsored the show in the past and will probably be sponsoring it in the future.
Frequently.
I have to place trust in a relatively young company.
Or I'm having to place trust in a relatively young company.
As you know, a router has access to a wealth of information about me and my family.
And whilst I like and respect Eero's efforts and security standpoint to date, my fear is that if they will be acquired, likely by Amazon...
Since Amazon are fast becoming the latest tech sponge, soaking up smaller companies from time to time.
I similarly refuse to use Google's mesh routers for privacy reasons.
You can email Dan.
If, on the other hand, Apple were to acquire Eero, I'm sure you'd agree we would all be happy.
I think that's a pretty good point.
Yeah, but, okay, so ever since we talked about these routers, we've heard from a bunch of people who have tried all the other systems, too.
You know, I only have experience with Ubiquiti's, like, high-end gear, not their mesh gear, and Eero's consumer stuff, and then, you know, before that, older stuff like Apple's gear.
And so I said during the show, like, you know, go Eero if you want, that kind of thing, because I can, you know, we can confirm we've all used it, it's super easy, it performs well, etc., you know, even though Disclosure, they are our sponsor.
Yeah.
But since then, everyone else has written in saying, basically vouching for all the other major systems.
We've heard people saying Google's Wi-Fi is awesome.
Privacy thing aside, okay, I know there are other options.
We've heard people saying that the Netgear... Is it the Orbi?
Netgear Orbi?
Is that theirs?
That the Orbi is awesome.
That Ubiquiti's Amplify line is awesome.
Basically, we've heard... Oh, and Cisco apparently has one too.
We've heard that...
All the major router manufacturers that all have these mesh systems, they're all pretty good.
So this is a good argument in the sense that if Eero was the only company making good modern mesh routers, that would be a little bit concerning.
But there have pretty much always, for the history of wireless routers, been like two to four good brands that you could trust at any given time to be decent.
And it seems like that is still the case now with mesh networks.
That...
There are still like, you know, two to four major brands that all make pretty good stuff.
So I don't think we're in that bad of a spot.
I think if any one of them were to go away, we'd still be okay because by all accounts, the other ones are all pretty good too.
the euro is the only one that's really apple like though uh and uh physical wise like the orby is huge and the other ones are very ugly like so i know it doesn't really mean that much like who cares if it's like a little white puck and who cares if you could turn the the little blinking lights off on them but that those are the little things that do make a difference
And we have heard negative reports from almost all the brands you've listed as well, including Euro.
Someone was saying that like it uses the network for configuration.
So if you don't have Internet access, you can't like boot the thing.
Although if you don't have Internet access, I'm not sure what good Wi-Fi would be.
So there's something to not recommend all of them as well.
But this question is specifically about the advantage that none of these other companies have, which is trusting that they're not doing anything nefarious with your network data.
and i would say secondarily perhaps security because apple is usually pretty good uh you know with the their security stuff google mesh router what are they doing with all the traffic that's flying through there other companies that may or may not uh currently or be forced to sell that information to get them out of a financial situation that that trust issue is would fall into the category of apple like in the modern age where
Depending on who you are, you may or may not trust Apple more or less than other companies, but presumably if you use Apple stuff and like them, you put them in a higher category of trust than you would another company whose incentives are not as neatly aligned with yours when it comes to revealing or selling information about what network traffic is flowing through your house.
It's scary, I mean, how much they could know.
So it's a reasonable thing to worry about.
Finally, Kyle Putnam writes, kind of a PSA, and we'll see how this turns out next week, but it is something that I'd forgotten about that's worth noting.
Kyle writes, because the iPhone X launched quote-unquote late last year, log into your account now to prepay the remaining two months on your upgrade installments.
Otherwise, people are going to risk having a very bad night when they try to pre-order the new phone and find out they can't.
So let me unpack this a little bit.
If you recall, the iPhone 10 wasn't announced in it.
I don't care what the actual dates were until like October, November or something like that.
He couldn't buy it till November.
The point is, it was later than September.
That's all that really matters for the purpose of this conversation.
Well, if you're on the prepay plan, they expect you to get 11 or 12 or what have you payments out of a year's worth of iPhone.
So what that means is if you bought in October, November, whatever the particular date may be,
They're not going to want to let you upgrade until this coming October or November.
And so in order to get a day one upgrade to the iPhone XS or whatever the crap it's called, which we'll talk about, then you're going to need to give them the money that you sort of kind of owe them.
I guess really just straight up owe them sometime between now and then.
Now, I don't know if this is true or not.
I agree with what Kyle's saying.
It sounds right to me, but your mileage may vary.
Do what you think is best.
Don't take financial advice from the three of us.
But it's something to consider that if you want a day one iPhone X plus one, then you might want to look at…
Well, I don't know.
No, iPhone Y. Yeah, and iPhone Y. Good point.
You might want to just check that out and make sure that you are free and clear on your existing phone.
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And in fact, this is going to be also a homework assignment for you, the listeners.
Read this book or listen to the audio book pretty much now.
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Again, strongly recommend it.
If you like this show, if you care about Apple, if you want to hear amazing stories about how critical parts of the iPhone were developed, read or listen to this book.
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or just search for Creative Selection in your bookstore of choice and you will find it.
Once again, Creative Selection by Ken Cascienda, highly recommended.
Thank you so much to Creative Selection and to Ken Cascienda for sponsoring the show and writing a really great book.
Thursday this past week, a friend of the show, Guillermo Rambo, had made some discoveries, which were published at 9to5Mac.
So there were two posts that went out on Thursday, the 30th of August.
The first one, exclusive.
This is the iPhone XS.
How do you say that without... 10S.
Yeah, I can tell you Apple is going to say it 10S.
I guarantee you that.
I can read an iPhone X. I can see the word iPhone and the letter X, and I can translate that to iPhone X. I genuinely was not trying to be funny when I said XS.
I'm just looking at the two letters next to each other, and I cannot get my brain to transfer or transform X to 10 but leave the S alone.
I just can't do it.
It's an interesting aspect to that.
I don't want to jump ahead here, but these stories seem very sure that that's the name of the phone, which leads me to believe that they got that information from the same source that they got the, you know, the pictures and stuff.
But the fact that they don't show any information
content from apple that shows the name of the new phone makes me think that perhaps the information was from like a url or a text string or some other thing that where they're not sure of the capitalization and that leads me to casey's inability to pronounce it does it help at all if the s is lowercase
No.
I think it would.
They're probably going to style it.
Remember when the 5S came out, they styled the S lowercase for the first time there so it wouldn't look like SS.
And it didn't really matter.
When everybody was writing about it, you would still capitalize it.
It didn't stick.
They changed their mind.
Yeah, because it looked like iPhone 5s.
Right.
So if it's going to look like iPhone Xs?
It's going to look like iPhone Xs, which is even worse.
So I'm guessing they're going to style it in their usual way, which is like, you know, put the S in a little box so it looks so different that you're prompted to say iPhone XS as two separate things.
But when everyone writes about it, they're all going to write XS right next to each other in both capitals with no space.
So as much as I like a lot of Apple's products and improvements in recent years, their naming has not been amazing recently.
And so, yeah, if this is called the 10 S and everyone's going to call it excess all year and everyone's going to make, you know, excess as in like, you know, excess water kind of jokes or tennis, like tennis, the sport jokes as an excess water.
Is that a common phrase?
Excess water?
i don't know i just came from the beach man give me a break i just keep seeing in excess like the 80s band yeah so i yeah it's it's gonna be a bad name but you know it will get over it just like we got over iphone x being 10 like that's also a bad name we got over that we got over the macbook
Well, most of us, besides the three of us, have gotten over the name, you know, MacBook.
Apple has tons of weird names.
We got over the MacBook Escapes crazy name.
Maybe we haven't if we're still calling it that.
But sorry.
We got over the name of the MacBook Pro 13-inch with two Thunderbolt ports.
Okay.
So bad.
All right.
So we already and it's my fault, but we already got sideways on this.
So what happened?
So Jeremy Rambo has discovered through means that I don't believe have been formally disclosed, but there's some going theories on it, but has discovered what appear to be two different marketing images that surely look to me to be actual Apple marketing images.
One of them is of the iPhone XS.
I really had to think that through to make sure I got that right.
The iPhone XS and something that appears to be larger than the iPhone XS and something about the Apple Watch.
Now, I personally think that the Apple Watch one is more interesting, but I think we should cover the iPhone one first.
So, what this is is two iPhone X looking things with an image of a planet of some form.
I'm sorry, Jason and Steven.
I don't know which planet this is.
That is on it.
That makes it kind of look like a hump, which is weird.
It almost looks like the profile of a magic mouse, actually.
Oh, yeah.
But it's two phones stacked on top of each other, one of which to my eye, and it's hard to tell, of course, but one of which to my eye looks like a standard iPhone X and the other one looks like something considerably larger, but otherwise the same basic form as an iPhone X. So...
It stands to reason that this is the iPhone Y, as Marco dubbed it a few minutes ago, and the iPhone Y Plus, which is the next version of the iPhone X, but bigger, just like the 6 Plus was the 6, but bigger.
Did you hear the thing from, I think it was yesterday, where somebody was saying, some connected person was saying, that the big one is going to be called the XS Max?
Yeah.
yes there's a story on that going around yeah it doesn't seem to be as well sourced as this one is but i'm just i'm hoping that that was like somebody drawing too much from a url and it was like max resolution of the image right like iphone underscore excess underscore max like that's what i'm hoping this is from it could be the the iphone math remember that from like episode one that was so great for the plus oh man that was so great
yeah that so let's hope it's not the iphone math or let's hope it is the iphone math situation and somebody's you know misreading this because man iphone xs max is such a weird like it's such a mouthful it's going to be miss said and misheard all the time like i hope they have a better name than that i don't see why they can't just do you know iphone 10 plus 10s plus i don't know none of these names are good but
Some are worse than others.
So I left out a few things from the description of this.
I think the other two salient other things about this other than, you know, just a typical phone marketing shot.
The first is that what they're emphasizing in this picture matches what they're emphasizing in the invitation that went out to press, which is the gold finish of the metal parts on the side.
These are both very shiny gold.
things and what Apple chooses to put in their glamour product shots very often is like whatever they're pushing like the phones come in all sorts of different finishes and colors and you know the Apple chooses to highlight one or two of them and here's highlighting the gold and you can tell what that gold finish is going to look like it's going to be very glossy
Um, so that's, you know, something to consider and because it matches the invitation.
And the second is that this picture shows two phones, not three.
And I think this is a hint towards, we have this big discussion about the three different rumored sizes of phones, a hint towards how Apple is going to market these.
Well, first of all, it could possibly be hint that there is no third phone and that part of the rumor was wrong.
But assuming it's not wrong, it shows that they have they have a photo here of these two phones, which are are being promoted together because they're both like tens or whatever, you know, whatever family they're in.
If there is a third phone, it's not being promoted in a family photo with these other two phones.
So it's so much lesser that it doesn't even deserve to be in a picture with the OLEDs because they get to have the, you know, infinite black background of space behind this planet and or moon.
I also don't know which one it is.
Probably moon, though.
And I find that interesting.
First of all, it's making me doubt that there might not even be a third phone.
And second of all, it's making me think if there is a third phone, it is totally kicked off the stage.
And it'll be interesting.
If they give this presentation, I was trying to think of what order they're going to show things in.
I guess you have to show the cheap phone first.
But if the cheap phone looks and behaves almost exactly like this one, how do you get people excited about this phone?
I mean, here's the new phone and it's this interesting size that's in the middle.
And we probably won't mention the screen technology and we'll show you that it has one camera.
I guess the only thing you can get excited about that phone is the price.
And then presumably you save these phones till after that, because these are the better ones.
It's really making me doubt the third phone theory.
I don't know.
I haven't been keeping up on the latest of the rumors, but this picture has really rocked my world because I was figuring like, surely this is a great opportunity to show the three sizes, right?
And no, just two phones in this picture.
Yeah, I wouldn't put that much into it.
Yeah, I agree.
Obviously, we don't know what the specific genesis of this is, like where it came from, what it represents.
But it would not at all surprise me if Apple globbed the OLED phones together as one unit, be that because they have the same or similar names, because they have...
Any number of reasons to treat them as one.
And then this theoretical kind of odd screen size LED, LCD, whatever it is, LCD other phone is just treated separately in the same way that like a MacBook is treated separately from a MacBook Pro.
But they're all laptops.
You know, I think that this what you're seeing is exactly that.
And I think you're reading a little too deeply into it.
Yeah, and also like, you know, the part of the rumor is that the 10 line will still be using steel as its like outer band material, whereas this new cheaper phone is going to be using aluminum.
And so the aluminum, you know, brushed finish would look so different from these, it would be like, it would look like a weird sandwich.
Like it would have like these two perfect like glossy gold finishes, which is
clearly what they want to emphasize in the marketing because you know it's an s year they're going to do new colors to help get people get excited about it and make it look new even though the external design won't be new for one of them at least so anyway so having the two shiny gold things and then sandwiched between them a phone that's
a kind of one of their sizes and then has a brushed aluminum side and also can't depict this picture with those deep black levels as the rest of them can like it would just look weird i think so i think this i wouldn't read anything into this image you know about the the third phone you know confirming or denying either way it's probably a an image that is used just to show off the new tens and their new color
Right.
So that's bringing me to my second thing of how how do you talk about the other phone, assuming there is a third phone?
How do you talk about it and where do you slot it in the order?
Because you have to have something nice and interesting to say about it.
If you included it with all the other phones and if they all were the same materials and finishes and you could show them together.
That excuses you from having to go into depth about them.
You just say, look, here are the phones.
They're all like this.
They all have these features.
And it's, you know, good, better, best, small, any, or larger, whatever.
But if you're going to talk about that phone separately, do you talk about that phone first or after these phones?
I think probably first.
Absolutely first.
You absolutely do it first because you say, look, we're moving the tech from the iPhone X because that's the only notch phone that exists at this moment in the presentation.
We're moving the tech from the iPhone X.
People love the iPhone X, and we decided we found a way to bring it to everybody, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, something like that.
Exactly right.
Yeah, and so what's your big capital to that?
Is it the price slide?
I get it.
Well, because, like, so, I mean, one big unknown that I have is, like, what's the pitch here besides price for that phone?
Because with the previous generation, like, with the iPhone X and then the 8 and 8 Plus...
The X had these bold, controversial new things.
It had Face ID instead of Touch ID.
So you lost Touch ID.
You had to rely on this new thing called Face ID, which was different and not quite as good in certain ways.
It also had the notch, which was very controversial when it came out.
So basically, a lot of people said, you know what?
I don't want to deal with this new stuff.
I want to keep the old stuff.
It worked great for me.
I want to keep doing it.
So I'll buy the 8 or 8+.
With this phone, they're getting rid of the, like, I like the old stuff better angle because it's taking on Face ID and the notch, apparently, by the rumors.
So the only thing left to distinguish it from the X is price.
And so, you know, of course they're going to do stuff like, you know, cut the camera, make the cheaper body material, stuff like that.
But I wonder, like, what else are they going to do, as we discussed last episode?
Because, like...
Yeah.
that only one year ago and before you could buy the current tech, the best tech.
And if you look at the 8 and 8 Plus, they have the current tech and the best tech in almost every way, especially the 8 Plus.
The difference in the camera between the 8 Plus and the 10 is very small.
And there's very few other differences besides Face ID and the edge-to-edge thing.
And so now, how the heck are they going to make this cheaper phone be worth its still high price but differentiated enough from the X and XS Max Plus, whatever it is?
That's a big question for me.
Yeah, I think your pitch before about we've brought the 10 technology to the masses is probably the way they'll go for it if it's slotted in the beginning.
And speaking of rumors of weird names, that actually is a thing that could be used to make this seem interesting and more attractive.
merely by giving it a new name like the rumor was that it was going to be 10r like a lowercase r after the 10 i have no idea what these the tenor obviously yeah or i think the rumor was actually just that it was going to have a surprising name or something like that anyway it's really not going to be called the iphone 9 that's they're not going to use that
That would be the obvious thing, right?
But as I'm saying, giving it a different naming scheme, kind of like the SE, where that was a new line, a new naming.
You've got the numbered ones, you've got the 10 ones, and if you gave this one a third line, like now it's the 10Rs or the R models, or they can call it the 10SE, or who knows, whatever.
That's one way you can make it seem interesting, because this isn't just a cheaper phone, it's the beginning of a new line of cheaper phones, never mind that Apple changes its mind from year to year to whatever the heck is the best thing for that year, and doesn't seem particularly dedicated to any
any naming or branding or sizing or marketing theme or product line theme for its phones it just does what makes sense from year to year uh but having having a different name and making it be like a democratized version of the technology from the 10 i think you can follow that up with and now here are the real tens and they're gold and it still holds together as a presentation
I mean, it seems very obvious to me that it's what Marco initially said.
You know, we want all this cool technology.
And they would pitch it in a much better way than I'm about to.
But it's all this cool technology that used to be exclusive and only for super, super rich people is now available to all of you, the regular rich people.
You know, we're bringing it down market.
You know, it's like it's the halo car that you've been talking about for so long, John, you know, that that.
that we had the halo car iphone 10 now that tech is moving downstream and you can have it too but we want you to not have to pay an obscene price for it so you're not going to get two cameras because because it's too much money you're not going to get the oled screen because it's too much money but look at we've made some great compromises on your behalf and you'll love it oh and by the way here's the iphone y and it's even better so give us all your money it might be lighter than 10 too for aluminum versus steel which might be a reasonable selling point also it'll come in more colors
uh yeah yeah that's that that is actually very interesting i was thinking that they would give it in less colors just to punish you for buying the cheap phone but we'll see yeah i don't understand apple's color strategy like if if it were up to me i would i would assume that you would want colors to be a premium thing especially like in an s year where there's new like i would i would want the most color choice in the highest end products yeah i guess it's not classy enough yeah
This year is the gold phone year.
I don't see them saying also Bumblebee yellow.
It always annoyed me when the 5C got all the good colors.
If you ever see a white 5C, even though that's not an exciting color, white 5Cs look cool.
The yellow ones look cool.
You've seen the product red versions of the phones.
those look pretty good like yeah the product red 8 and 8 plus look fantastic but i didn't want to get it because you know not only was it a half cycle but like it wasn't the iphone 10 i like the iphone 10 like why why isn't the best phone available in the best colors yeah well i mean it's like a robotic core like everyone puts cases on these things so it doesn't really matter i know and i do love my orange case i gotta say i'm very happy with it
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I feel like we should go into predictions, and yet, as with, was it last year?
I guess last year, I don't know if there's a whole lot to predict.
I mean, it seems like we're getting something that's the same size as the iPhone X. So tell me, what is going to be surprising?
I mean, it seems like we all agree, and I just don't mean the three of us.
I mean, we as a community agree.
There's going to be an iPhone Y, if you will.
There'll be an iPhone Y+, and again, those names are obviously BS.
Why do you keep using Y?
I'm not following the gag with the Y. I made a joke earlier.
Because Carl just said it earlier.
because he made his cases at x plus one yeah and if no i like it because it's one bigger so instead of 11 you're going why all right i got it now i was doing some c string pointer arithmetic earlier so this this makes sense to me uh the quick aside my favorite interview question when i was when i was interviewing for c plus plus roles was uh giving people a a short block of code that would reverse the string and ask them what the hell it was doing and and it was enjoyable and
Anyway, point being that we all agree that it's a iPhone 10 replacement.
There's something that's like an iPhone 10 replacement that's bigger.
We're 50-50 on this LCD version of the iPhone 10.
What else is there that you're expecting, Marco, that you think is interesting?
Related to the phones only, right?
Yes, yes, yes.
We're not talking about the launch.
I was going to say, if you look at what is likely and or plausible to launch from Apple this fall, it's a hilariously long list.
I'm only talking about the phone right now.
I'm sorry.
Only the phone.
Only the phone and not even counting phone accessories.
I think you're right.
Honestly, I don't expect this to be a big year for the phone, but that might just be because
I'm historically pretty bad at, and I think most of us are, pretty bad at predicting what kind of cool new tech will be introduced in the S year.
Because usually the iPhone S years introduce a bunch of cool stuff.
Historically, they've introduced things like Touch ID, 3D Touch, and stuff like that.
There's always cool stuff introduced in the S years.
And so...
And normally it's stuff that nobody was really predicting or asking for or had any idea, but then you get it.
You're like, oh, that's cool.
Yeah, I definitely want that.
Sometimes it's software features that are artificially limited to the new phones, but usually it's like hardware stuff kind of tied in.
So usually it's pretty cool.
So, you know, they're probably going to do like special camera features, for instance, something like that, right?
But other than that, I don't have any good imagination for like what other cool tech they'll introduce for the S generation.
Because as usual at this time of year,
I'm very happy with my iPhone 10, and I can't imagine why I would want to lose $1,200 in two weeks or one week to buy the new phone.
But what's going to happen probably is next week, they're going to tell us exactly why I'm going to lose $1,200.
And then all of a sudden, just want it on day one and can't be without it.
But at this moment, I really can't think of what those things might be.
I think there may be a little oversubscribed on cool stuff in the 10 generation, because you're right that they usually do introduce the exciting stuff like the, you know, some interesting software hardware synergy that's enabled by the new power refinement or whatever.
But the 10 had so much of that, like portrait mode and then the portrait mode refinements and emoji, all those things you can do.
Like those seem to all come with a 10.
Obviously, they'll all get better this year, but I can imagine something like either portrait mode or Animoji having an enhanced version of that on the S as being a fancier feature.
But they're so old at this point.
They're not like...
You know, I mentioned last time I made up something about some 360 camera thing that use the front and back cameras at the same time.
That's the type of silly feature that you can imagine being enabled.
But I just feel like this year, like everything that the 10 did, they're just going to do all of that better.
And I'm also having difficulty coming up with anything other than like just they could just demo stuff like that is enabled by the advances in AR kit.
that you already would have seen if you went to WWDC, but now here they are in an actual shipping phone, right?
They have an ARKit thing in that topic for probably not this week, not next week, but maybe the week after.
But that's still out there as a possibility of a thing they can demo.
But I'm sure Apple will come up with some way to make us think we need this phone.
But honestly, if it just comes in shiny gold and is faster, that's enough reason for most people to get it.
I mean, is there any chance that you, Marco, and probably me too are not getting this phone?
That's my year for phones, so I'm getting the 10.
Oh, look at you.
It would be kind of funny if there was a year that went by that only John got the phone and we didn't.
Could be this year.
Marco's going to get it no matter what.
Casey probably doesn't need it.
Honestly, I'm having a hard time coming up with reasons to get the new phone now not having any knowledge about it, obviously.
I got it.
The way it's better is way better face ID.
Be that quicker or more reliable, that's the way it's better.
Something hardware-related that makes face ID way better.
Yeah, well, as I said, all the features that they had already will be better.
Yeah, no, no, but to me, like, okay, you can say that the camera will be better, but it's hard, for me anyway, it's hard for me to see a tremendous difference between individual adjacent iPhone years.
Like, I look at 3GS pictures I've taken, and they're terrible.
But if you look at the 3GS compared to the 4, the 4 compared to the 4S, generally speaking, I personally don't see a tremendous difference.
but the camera will probably be enough for Marco or me, but I think the way we're going to get Marco, well, not we, but they'll get Marco is by saying Face ID is way, way, way better because it's either faster, more accurate, or both.
And I think that'll be enough.
Yeah, so it's like Touch ID second generation.
I'm sure that will be the case.
Yeah, exactly.
But that's not, you know, like the S generation didn't just have, or whatever time Touch ID second gen came out, that wasn't the only feature.
In fact, that was the type of feature that
like got a one sentence mention and only the tech nerds knew about like the distinction between first and second gen touch id was not a thing that apple marketed pretty heavily um well they should have like that was like i remember um it came out it was announced like a few days before xoxo conference one year and then you know xoxo it was one of those years where the iphone ordering midnight was during xoxo and uh and so i remember standing on the roof of
a bar at this hotel there and uh there was somebody with me who had their review unit with them and i remember i saw they showed how fast touch id was and it blew my mind and i was kind of i'm like ah maybe i can wait till i get home to order it when i saw how fast touch id was
I was like, wait, did it even work?
Did you even do it?
It was so much faster than Generation 1 that that's what really pushed me over the edge.
Like, oh my god, I need this phone yesterday.
And so if they make Face ID that much faster, that could be something, but...
it probably won't be that much faster after only one year.
Because, you know, Touch ID had, I think, two or three years of it being slow.
Because it got faster on the 6S, right?
I think it was the second... I thought it was the second year it came out.
Wasn't it the 6S?
So it came out on the 5S, right?
So 5S, 6... So yeah, there were two years.
I don't know.
I'll have to look it up.
My recollection is it wasn't that long.
Anyway, I remember when...
face id first came out uh last year i think i recall predicting that it will be harder to make face id faster than it was to make touch id faster just because it's a more complicated problem so yeah despite the fact that it will surely be faster and better i'm not sure the leap will be as big but i'm not sure that matters though because what what
What matters for people wanting to buy it or for being a differentiating factor is not the percentage increase in speed or accuracy over last year.
It really just matters where that point of diminishing returns is.
So Touch ID second gen, like, wow, so much faster.
We can notice it.
But the real point is that Touch ID second gen crossed over a line from thing that I feel like I'm waiting for a little bit to a thing that I never feel like I'm waiting for.
And it's not as if touch ID third gen, fourth gen and fifth gen, you know, cut the speed in half and half and half again, because we were at the point of diminishing returns.
Like touch ID was fast enough.
They didn't spend a lot of time and resources trying to make it twice as fast again and then twice as fast again because you crossed the threshold.
Now with face ID, I'm not sure how close we are to that threshold of instantness because I don't use this.
I don't have a 10.
I don't use it every day.
I think it probably still feels, my guess is that you two 10 users can tell me, that it still feels like there is a slight delay, which makes me think there is still a finish line out there of no longer feels like a delay.
But I'm not sure how close we are to it.
We are closer to it than Touch ID generation one was.
like we there is still a gap there like i would like face id to be faster but it's nowhere near as slow as touch id one and it doesn't fail as often so you feel like maybe you know if touch id you know got twice as fast if this just got like 50 as fast we might be over the line and then it's like it's fine
Probably.
Yeah.
I mean, I would also, I would like face it to, to just have like a bigger radius.
Like the main way that it fails for me is angles.
Like if I, if it's like, if I'm picking it up off the table and it starts scanning before it's like facing me enough, or if I'm trying to like, you know, unlock it while I'm walking or like while it's in the car dock or something, you know, like, and there's like a slight, like I'm a little bit too far out of angle.
Like,
i would like to see improvements there and i want to see improvements uh first of also to just like angles like and and we'll get to the ipad stuff and hopefully shortly that like you know you can't right now you can't have face idea if your face is rotated like if you're holding the phone sideways getting out of bed or something like that so like improvements like that would be great but the actual speed of recognition like if it's going to recognize you at all it does it fairly quickly
I have found that with iOS 12, it has gotten a lot better at those things.
I wouldn't say the speed has felt any different to me, but it has felt like the angles have gotten a lot better than they were before.
Or at least that was my experience.
And we'll see if others feel the same when iOS 12 really comes out.
Are we going to see any iPads or should we wait for that?
Honestly, I mean, okay, so let's talk about the scope of this event, right?
People keep, like, there's a speculation.
Don't worry, everyone will get to the Apple Watch.
It's very exciting.
There's speculation about, like, you know, are there going to be two events?
Are there not going to be certain products?
Are they going to be delayed?
Are they going to be released by press releases?
So here is a list of everything I could think of of products that will plausibly or most likely launch this fall.
Okay.
The iPhone XS, the iPhone XS Plus or Max, which is a new form factor, which needs more time.
The iPhone 9, which is also a new form factor, which needs more time.
The Apple Watch Series 4, which is a new screen size, probably some kind of new sensor, some kind of new health thing, needs a lot of time.
The iPad Pro with edge-to-edge screen and Face ID, that's going to be a new form factor, probably in two different sizes, the 10.5 and 12.9 equivalents.
Probably new iPad Pro accessories for that weird new connector that's on the back of these things.
Maybe a Pencil 2 with better battery life.
Maybe a smart keyboard update for the new sizes of these things.
The AirPower mat.
New AirPods that work with the AirPower mat and maybe include things like the water resistance and always-on Hey Siri that people talked about earlier.
A HomePod software update that introduces multiple name timers and can initiate phone calls, maybe more on the HomePod, maybe a price drop, maybe a new model, who knows.
The iMac needs an update and has CPUs to do it.
The 12-inch MacBook needs an update.
The Mac Mini is rumored to get an update, possibly with the new Pro display.
And the MacBook Air replacement, which is an entirely new product.
And they have to fit all of this into an event with...
ios 12 watch os 4 mac os mojave some kind of show off of how awesome siri is a great ar demo that will be useless a game demo maybe too some kind of creative app demo if ipads are involved using the new ipad with maybe the new apple pencil a retail update health initiatives update tim cook talking very slowly and maybe a musical guest all of that has to fit allegedly in the september event i don't see it that's way too much stuff
you could you could cut enough stuff to make that into an event if you drop the musical guest and if you don't care about the mac then you can fit it into a single event honestly that's still really crammed like that's still a lot yeah i mean that's why people keep thinking it's going to be two events like i would assume this one is just uh devices that run ios watch os or what the hell is the home thing called the home pod yeah the os on it though oh i think it's audio os right
Yeah, something like that.
Phones, watches, iPads, and AirPower.
That's plenty for this event, right?
And all the new OSes.
That's a gigantic full event.
You don't mention anything about any of the Macs because you have to have a second event to show the MacBook Air replacement and the Mini, and then everything else is a press release or something.
I guess.
There are enough Mac updates, allegedly, or rumored, that that could be its own event.
As I was saying, October event.
They probably wouldn't give the Macs that kind of event anymore.
They would probably do press release kind of things and reviewers meeting in the place in New York or something like that.
It'd probably be something like that, but still...
There's so much stuff on the Apple slate for this fall that is either rumored or very likely to come.
I don't see how they fit all of this into one giant event.
And any way they cut it, they're leaving a lot on the table.
And it's possible that a lot of this stuff isn't coming this fall.
But so much of it has been pretty strongly rumored for it.
And the other variables seem to line up to support it that, I don't know, man.
It's a lot.
It's certainly a lot.
I'm glad you went through that list because I had all of that rumbling around in my head.
But until you enumerated every single line item, it didn't seem insurmountable.
But hearing that, that seems insurmountable.
I don't know how they do that in just one event.
And I mean, not to say that you're wrong, John.
I mean, I'm sure that there are ways in which we could make this.
I don't know why I keep saying we tonight.
I'm sure there are ways that can make this work.
But it seems really aggressive for sure.
don't forget the mac pro trailer yeah right that'll be the one more thing yeah a man can dream am i right make a trailer for a computer they should they should make trailers for computers the one more thing should be the mac mini update that would after after an entire show talking about watches and and ipads and phones the one more thing is the mac mini
yeah the only mac they talk about can't make a product in our lineup my butt oh my word all right anything other than the watch that we want to discuss because i am actually very excited to talk about the watch i
We could talk about any of this stuff.
That's why it's such a big scope.
So I'm going to go on the assumption, because this is such a massive list of things, I'm going to assume that John is right, that basically this event will have nothing about the Mac.
If for no other reason, because either A, Mojave isn't ready yet, which is some things we've been hearing from people, so maybe that's going to slip to October.
and b you know there's no room in this event for all this stuff so there probably is going to be some kind of october mojave and max release whether it includes an event or not we don't know yet but uh so even if if you just say all right this is devices that begin with i that don't end in mac and or i guess apple oh man this is what a mess all right so i was gonna say i was gonna say ios devices but it doesn't include the watches it's very difficult to
Flat glass things.
Right, plus air power.
With no keyboards.
Except the iPad keyboard.
That's a separate thing.
Oh, my God.
Yeah, so... Anyway, the iPad Pro, I think, is going to be really interesting, whatever they do to that, because there is, you know, something about these, you know...
skinny bezel, possibly face ID kind of things being discovered in software and everything.
So it does seem pretty strongly signaling that there's going to be a new iPad of the style of the iPhone X. Whether it has a notch, I don't know.
I don't think it would need a notch, but we'll see.
Anyway, that sounds...
kind of boring until you think about like well what else does that mean you know it means things like face id has to work in multiple orientations because i can't imagine them like you know putting having face id only work in one orientation on the ipad that would be really weird um and then of course if it did that would raise the interesting question of which orientation
which i think it should be landscape but they don't market it that way or design the apple logo on the back that way so who knows then there's the weird thing about that new connector on the back what the heck is that that's showing up in all these case renderings uh you know we speculated previously or i did at least like i think it'd be really cool if that was some kind of magnetic pencil attachment and charging point
um just like what the surface uh series of devices does with theirs because that's really nice like the big problem with the apple pencil is that it's never charged and it's never with you and this would solve both of those things um so that would be great uh but it also could be for something else what if it's for a new kind of keyboard what if it's for a laptop style case what who knows what it's for but that's probably going to justify some kind of event time first of all and second of all i'm just excited to see what that means what is that thing
And so I guess that's probably it on the iPad front.
Do you guys have any iPad thoughts?
The only thing I'm thinking about is if you make an edge-to-edge or closer-to-edge-to-edge screen or a new form factor for this, it starts to look more and more like what everyone else in the industry is doing with their big tablet-y things in that
that like the surface or the other things where they have a big thing that is mostly just screen and then a keyboard and apples you know does that with their current keyboard setup but apples because the keyboard acts as a stand and because you know it's just a little bit a little bit different it starts to look more like you just rip the screen off a laptop a modern laptop without huge borders around it so i'm wondering if
Apple takes this opportunity to rethink how they do their keyboards, like, just how they attach and everything.
I'm not saying they're going to go full, like, bridge keyboard with a hinge, making yourself a makeshift iOS laptop, but Apple has shown that they're willing to change around how they do cases and covers from year to year, even when they don't really need to, like the generation of iPad Pro I have.
The one after that, they change the case.
They stop selling the back case.
They just did the front one.
Like,
This year, what will they do for things that wrap around and attach to the iPad with the goal of making the combination of an iPad and a keyboard be more laptop-like and less like
some sort of weird floppy stand that you have to wrangle attached to your screen.
I think that's one opportunity for them to differentiate these new iPads in the mode that Apple seemed to be pushing them for a while, which is like, and attach a keyboard to it and a pencil, and it's like a recreated workstation, but it's floppy.
I would like to see them do something.
I've heard no rumors about this.
I'm just entirely saying what I would like to see.
It's a way that these, even though it has nothing to do with the iPad themselves, it can make these iPads seem even more differentiated and
special and more pro focused if apple has determined that this is actually what people want the other possibility is apple's determined most people don't want attached keyboards these things and so don't even bother showing it attached to it except for in the very end of the presentation when you say and we have these cool accessories get a keyboard
I don't know.
It occurred to me that I can't remember the last time I've used my iPad for more than like 15 minutes.
In fact, I don't remember the last time it's been charged.
Now, admittedly, I'm on the iPad mini from 44 years ago, the most recently updated iPad mini.
But I haven't used my iPad in a long, long time, which is weird.
I was going to say, send your unused iPads here because we have kids that love them.
But then you said it was a mini and nobody wants that crap in this house.
My kid's using a mini still.
I wonder if I tried to give an iPad, if I tried to give an iPad mini to my kids, I think they would reject it.
They'd be like, no, I want an iPad.
Why are you so mean to me?
No, I mean, they need the big screen.
The worst thing is the worst.
My son, he would probably complain because it would be too small.
And yet every time he watches YouTube, he doesn't maximize the window.
He just leaves it.
Like he leaves the rest of the YouTube UI around the video that he's watching on his, on his regular, you know, 10 inch iPad.
Like,
You're wasting half the screen.
I should give him any as punishment.
See, now your whole iPad is the size you used to watch YouTube.
My word.
No, I mean, to be fair, I didn't use my iPads much.
I would get them for testing, or I would think I would use them, and then I wouldn't use them.
What changed it for me was the smart keyboard for the iPad Pro and the speakers in the iPad Pro,
which that made me now leave it out all the time as my kitchen and dining room computer so that it plays podcasts.
If I want to look anything up while I'm cooking or while we're eating, I can quickly do that.
That changed the game, and that took the iPad from something that I would forget about in a drawer for months to something that I use every single day.
I still use mine every day and I use it like an iPad or like I use it like a Steve Jobs iPad portrait orientation sitting down in a comfy chair.
It's like a magazine with no paper.
I read books on it, too.
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Guillerme also found in one of the two images he found a genuinely fascinating image of what appears to be the Apple Watch Series 4.
This looks to me, let me paint you a word picture.
It looks to me to be a
Thankfully, this seemingly cellular Apple Watch does not have a big red blob on the crown.
Instead, it just has a red ring.
I still don't really see why that's necessary personally, but be that as it may, it appears to have another hole in between the side button and the digital crown, which I can assume would be a microphone.
But none of that is that terribly interesting other than the red going away.
What's really fascinating is this display because it appears to be an edge-to-edge display, and it has one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight complications on it.
Nine, actually, if you include what's in the kind of clock face itself.
So in the upper left-hand corner, it appears that a timer was started, and it's got 14 minutes, 59 seconds left.
There's an icon for the timer.
There's the readout for the amount of time remaining, and then there's a little graph or progress indicator in the upper right.
It is apparently 72 degrees.
The low for the day is 52 degrees, and the high for the day is 89, and the 72 is highlighted in the kind of graph in between the two.
I'm going to stop you right there and think that I'm not sure there's a location in California with a low of 52 and a high of almost 90.
but then again oh i bet there is you think somewhere in san francisco is down from 52 to 90 oh absolutely that's a 40 degree swing i would say somewhere a little bit north of san francisco maybe anyway all i'm saying is that is a big swing if that's supposed to be that the daily high i was thinking that they were just showing the you know like a range of temperature but i suppose they like they don't have to be in a high or low but boy that's that's rough you realize death valley is in california right
I guess that's true.
That one I would think would be even more extreme, like 111.
Well, sure.
But I'm just saying, like, those kinds of swings do exist.
Death Valley in January.
It was, what do you call it, a marketing photograph created by Apple in California.
so moving moving uh through the other corners and there's other things to talk about in the bottom right hand corner it appears that sunrise sorry sunset is at 7 30 p.m at god this watermark is obnoxious in nine hours and 21 minutes
uh in the bottom left the uv index is 3.6 whatever the crap that means then if you imagine the that was my thought as well i just assumed you guys knew the thing with the uv index that the reason it makes me suspect these progress bars is what the hell is the uv index progress bar showing i guess like blue is good and purple is bad and we're like almost halfway but not quite i'm not quite sure what that's showing
Yeah, beats me.
But now imagine if you're looking at a watch, you know, leaving all the complications aside, you have – what's the term for like the ring, Marco, where all the hour tick marks are and the minute tick marks?
Is there a term for that?
I don't – when it's just flat like that, I don't know the term.
There probably is a term, but I don't know.
You could talk about the indices that are the hour lines and things.
Okay, so the ring in which the indices sit.
Well, on this particular screenshot, from roughly 9 to 3, it reads the following text.
12 p.m.
lunch with Ken, bullet, tartine, which I'm assuming is a restaurant.
And that's actually where the hour and minute tick marks are, which I could see being annoying, but I think is freaking awesome.
I think that's tremendous that it shows you with text, presumably what your next appointment is.
And it does it in a way where you've kind of got that space for free.
As someone who has used an analog watch...
Let me rephrase that.
As someone who has used an analog watch and or analog watch face for most of my life, I know what the difference is between 9 and 10 and 11 and noon.
So I don't really need all those tick marks.
Having that data there is so freaking cool.
And I really, really think that's awesome.
And then within the watch face itself, because all those complications I was describing were outside of the ring.
Now, within the ring, we see it's Wednesday the 23rd.
We see our three activity rings.
We see a picture of the globe for reasons, I guess.
And then on the left-hand side, we see a musical note with some sort of meter around it, which I would assume means that they're playing a song, and it's either almost done or has just started, depending on whether it's counting up or counting down.
There is so much data on this display.
It's probably volume.
Oh, that's an interesting point.
Maybe you're right.
But either way, there's so much data on this display.
There's so much to read and look at.
And in the way that I found, what is the, is it the modern face?
What's the one that's just like hideous to look at on the current one?
Modular, that's what it is.
The modular face on the existing watch, I don't personally care for it, and I've almost never used it, because I just think that all the data kind of blends together, and I just don't like it.
I don't think it's good-looking.
This looks amazing.
And I had zero interest in upgrading my Apple Watch because I have a Series 3 cellular and I love it.
And it doesn't have battery problems yet.
It doesn't have speed problems yet.
And so far, it's working great.
And I had no desire to upgrade it until I saw this image.
And now I think I'm screwed.
I'm going to disagree with your premise at the very beginning of this briefly, is that you said, who cares about the form factor?
It's all about what's on the screen.
I care the opposite.
I care less about watch faces because they have new watch faces all the time.
And this watch face is cool, fine, whatever.
But it's a different form.
It's not an Airstream trailer.
It's a slimmed down Airstream trailer.
And to my eye, it looks way thinner than the other.
Obviously, it's probably only a few millimeters.
But when I look at this, it looks less like a bubbulous computer watch and more like a kind of homely regular watch with a huge screen on it.
yeah to be fair i mean like this what's the apple watch current thickness uh my ball in here it's probably about 14 millimeters something like that the picture of this one looks like it's closer to like nine or ten and that it could just be a flattering angle but it does look noticeably thinner and going for like in the watch world something that's like 13 or 14 millimeters is pretty chunky something that's you know nine to 12 is considered pretty pretty thin and
And of course there's, you know, proportions and how big it is matters also, but like that's a thin watch.
And so visibly from this picture, this does look surprisingly thin.
I think it's, I think the change from the, uh, from the giant red dot to this more tasteful, although still I agree, Casey unnecessary, uh, red ring on the crown, uh, for this other model, that's nice too.
It's also worth pointing out.
This appears to be shiny gold, uh,
just like the iPhone XS and XS Max Plus 2.
It's not as shiny, though.
You can tell it's not a steel watch, or at least the finish doesn't look like it.
I disagree.
It looks exactly like a steel watch to me because it looks very...
you know they've made gold apple watches until now besides the additions but ignore those they've made all the aluminum gold ones and they all have like a very obvious like you know matte gold finish it's very clear looking at what you're looking at this looks like the steel model um and it looks like it is um i'm gonna say that's that's a shiny gold i'm gonna say you're wrong it looks like it's the exact same finish as the iphone 10s
I agree that they're trying to make it look shiny, like it doesn't look like the current matte gold ones.
But from looking at this picture, to me, it looks like an aluminum one they're making as shiny as they possibly can.
Maybe I'm wrong because it's just one picture.
It's really hard to tell.
And especially since a lot of their marketing pictures look, I'm going to say like airbrushed, right?
Obviously, that's old technology, but like they all look a little bit softer, like there's a dreamlike haze to all of them, which can make it look a little bit more matte.
But I looked at this picture and I assumed it was an aluminum watch they made as shiny as they possibly could.
which made me fear that they may not even make the steel watch anymore because like the steel watch the main the main reason i'm interested in is for aesthetics but it does have the downsides of being heavier and making the vibrations less noticeable and stuff like that so i'm willing to believe that we found a way to make aluminum shiny and we just call this the gold watch and it looks as shiny as we could possibly make it but we'll see
So, Marco, as the resident watch nerd who has zero interest in digital watches, is this appealing to you at all?
Is this not appealing?
Is this really just more of the same?
How are you feeling about this?
Knowing, obviously, very little, but just from the look of it.
All right.
I took out my digital calipers.
I'm measuring my Series 3 aluminum.
And if you include the bump on the back, which you should, it is 13.7 millimeters thick.
Not including the bump, it's about 11.3.
But obviously you should include the bump because that's part of the thickness.
It stands it off your wrist.
It's like a giant pillow floating there in space.
So including the bump, it's almost 14 millimeters.
So my eyeballing was roughly correct.
Anyway.
just don't like wearing the Apple Watch, and I don't think that's ever going to change.
The things I don't like about it are things that are fundamental to smartwatches, especially to an Apple smartwatch, at least as we know it so far.
But it's things like
I don't like having the same watch as everyone else in the room.
I don't like having a watch that itself needs me for things like charging and software updates.
That's a burden on me that I don't want to deal with more than I have to.
I already deal with it enough with my other devices.
I don't like having a watch that is constantly buzzing or lighting up.
But yet I also don't like having a watch that isn't always showing me the time in some way.
So it's like, you know, I want it to both never light up and always be lit up.
So it's like, it's kind of, I'm kind of, you know, what I want out of a watch is something that the Apple Watch can't really give me.
And I don't, some of those things might change a little bit over time, but I don't expect the overall, you know, essence of it to change over time.
That being said,
There are times when I do wear it, usually for testing, and there are certain things about it I appreciate, and certain things about it that they could just change in software that I wish they would.
One of the things I wish they would change in software is to just make the watch faces smarter.
Give me better visualization of data, give me more data, both of which they appear to have addressed in this new face in this image, and
make it smarter about when it's showing me what things like i've been really about this for years like i don't need to i don't need the giant like timer widget or complication to say set when i don't have a timer active but every time i have a timer active i want to see it on the watch face even if i never told it to be in a complication i the watch should be smart to figure out like you have a timer going on your watch for three minutes you
You want to know how that timer is progressing.
You don't need to know necessarily in that moment the sun sets in four hours if you just started a three-minute timer.
You want to see that for three minutes.
When it's over, maybe later, then tell me about sunset.
There's so much more the Apple Watch faces can do to be smart about when they show you things.
The Siri Watch face does some of this.
I don't like the Siri watch face much at all.
It still needs a lot more control, and it still isn't quite as smart as I want it to be, and I think it looks terrible.
But that's just me.
A lot of people like the Siri watch face, so I can't complain that much.
But overall, I want the Apple Watch platform to become smarter, to realize it is software and needs not comply with the restrictions of mechanical watch design when it can be smart about what it shows you and when.
and something like this leaning into types of complications that mechanical watches can't offer things like the weather and you know the uv index like the sunset times are almost not offered there's like one watch it offers them and it's kind of it's pretty cool actually but if you ever move you have to make them adjust it uh mechanically anyway
Oh, my word.
Yeah, that sounds super cool.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But anyway, I want the watch to get better in these ways of what it's showing me, how smart it can be, taking clues from context about what's relevant to show me and what's not.
And this looks like it's fixing some of those problems.
It probably isn't going to fix all of them, but it looks like it's fixing some of them.
And I've got to give them credit.
If it is, that is steps in the right direction.
Ultimately, I don't think it's ever going to be for me again, at least not on a permanent basis.
I might wear it sometimes, maybe during certain things like exercising or walking or whatever, or traveling maybe.
I don't like traveling with a charger, but otherwise, yeah, it's not for me.
So I think this new form factor could represent a significant moment in the life of the watch, potentially taking it from a big, chunky computer nerd watch that some people learn to love, even though it's a big, chunky computer nerd watch, which is kind of where we've been for the past few years, where it's not as if only computer nerds buy them, but there is a barrier to be overcome.
You have to be convinced to wear this thing that looks too big.
you know it doesn't it doesn't seem to justify its size until you maybe get it and wear it a little bit and you're like oh it's great i love my workouts and i love notifications like you you can be won over by it but you have to first overcome the hurdle of like i don't know if i want an airstream trailer on my wrist this may put it below the threshold where people don't immediately instinctually
say, no, not for me, because it just looks too ridiculous.
The farther they can get away from it looking like a computer watch, the better they are.
I think this still looks a little bit like a computer watch, and it's hard for me to tell from this picture exactly how thin it really is.
But I think that...
That is the most important feature of this watch in terms of attracting new buyers that's thinner and attracting buyers who maybe love their watches and use them all the time, but they wish it was a little bit thinner, especially women or people with small wrists, right?
Because it just, even though they make the smaller size, which is great,
it starts to dominate it starts to look like you're wearing one of those like ankle tracker things that they put on you when you're not supposed to like flee you know you're out on bail or something right it looks it looks big and the closer they can get this to looking more like a piece of jewelry uh not it's not going to satisfy marco ever but like more more like just a traditional watch and less like a computer watch
That is huge.
Now, as for the computer watch, parts of it, there was a good parody image floating around Twitter or somewhere.
I wish I'd know who made it.
It showed like the shots that they show in the Iron Man and Avengers movies of the inside of Tony Stark's helmet when he's Iron Man.
They show...
It's a shot that doesn't really make any sense if you think about it for two seconds.
But anyway, it's Robert Downey Jr.
's face and surrounding it are all these sort of like heads up displays of like glowing lights everywhere.
And someone just swapped in the watch face from this picture.
The joke is that this is a lot of information.
It looks like
movie technical mumbo jumbo gobbledygook lots of lines and gradients and words and things like if you made up this watch face as a mock-up especially like before the apple watch came out they'd be like apple would never make something like this because it's it's garish information overload trying to wedge information into every small like the the the one step forward from this parody would be like and if you zoom in the tick marks for the hours those are tiny words
like each one of those is a contact name and if you tap on it it will send a message to that contact it's like how much more why don't they just put your next appointment on the minute hand because it's the long one and it can fit like there's a lot of information now i totally agree with everything marco said about how this watch face could be smarter and this to that end this is this is part of that because now they have more room to put things and
if they dynamically swap them it's not the end of the world because you have so much room to put stuff and of course this is not going to be the only watch face there'll be a million watch faces right probably most of the existing ones and new ones and modified ones and you know all that other stuff right so i think that the software watch face story is significant especially to experienced users but this story is 100 about apple watch now it's thinner it's not as gross as it was before take a look at it again
uh and that that like you know we'll see in in the months and weeks to come uh what the conversations surrounding the apple watch are but if i had to tell anyone a reason they should go into an apple store and look at an apple watch i would say it's thinner now that's what would be what i would open with and i wouldn't mention anything about watch faces or red dots or color finishes or anything like that um and
Related to all this, you know, I have the Series Zero or whatever in the shiny stainless steel because it's the one I like.
I never use it.
I wear it like two times a year and I'm considering getting this watch.
Because?
Because when I wear it two times a year, it's big and fat and heavy.
And this one will be thinner and presumably more attractive and will actually work with all the new features.
Like, it's Series Zero.
I can't use watchOS 5, right?
I can't use Overcast on the watch.
Like, I have AirPods.
If I go for a long walk, it's nice to be able to go for a long walk with just my watch and my AirPods instead of having to have my phone with me.
Especially if I get a cellular one and I'm not out of touch.
They've come far enough, technologically speaking,
that it's not like it's going to make me wear this watch every day, but the few times a year when I do wear the watch, this will be a better watch to wear, obviously.
And it may encourage me to wear it one or two more times a year.
It makes me feel bad because this is going to be really expensive.
How can I justify buying this stupid watch for all this money that I wear five times a year instead of three?
I don't know.
You'll double your usage.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
I'm working on it with myself to see.
I'll have to see what the prices are.
I'll have to see if they make a stainless steel one.
If I don't like how many of them look, maybe I'll just continue to wait.
But anyway, my wife is getting one 100% for sure.
One thing, too, about the watch faces that, like, it's another massive paper cut that annoys me about the Apple Watch is when they introduce cool stuff to watch faces, usually it's, like, one face that gets it.
And sometimes that's just, like, a cool new thing, you know, some new ability.
Sometimes it's something fairly important.
Like, on the cellular models, as far as I know, the only watch face that supports showing you whether you are connected to cellular and how strongly is the Explorer face that was added last year.
The other watch face, it's not a complication that you can just add to the other faces.
Why not?
Or why didn't they integrate it into the other faces as a thing you can turn on?
Or that's just always there.
Or why isn't it part of the status bar?
I don't know.
So looking at this new face in this leaked image or found image, whatever it is,
There's all these cool diagonal complications.
Is that going to be an API for developers to integrate with?
Because right now, that's not a complication type that we have.
Maybe we can, maybe we can't.
If it is, is it going to be something that we can actually animate, like the timer, or not?
Is it going to only work with this watch face?
Or are they going to go and update all the other watch faces?
If the face of the watch is larger, if, you know, I mean, sorry, if the screen is larger, are they going to update all the previous watch faces to be larger?
Or are they going to look like the way they do now, which is basically like a small round face in the middle of this giant black expanse of nothing?
Oh, no, they'll be updated.
And another thing I wanted to ask you, so the rumor is that the Series 4 watch is 384 by 480.
That's points, not pixels, I assume.
How big is the current one in points?
Do you know offhand?
Yeah.
It's like 160, something like that.
So that's probably pixels then.
Oh, you think that's pixels?
Yeah.
Anyway, my question was, they give this number.
I don't know how much bigger that is.
Obviously, the pitch and the picture.
It's 384, 480, and currently it is 312, 390.
So that's part of the reason that they're able to jam all this extra information is, is now they have enough room to maybe make them read.
Although I have to say, reading how much time is left on that timer,
That may be difficult, especially on the smaller watch, given what size that is.
But that's why they have the progress bars, the little curvy progress bar.
So I think it's a reasonable compromise for including more information.
But part of the reason people like modular is that you can have really big numbers for tech.
People who don't like reading analog watches, people who just want to have a few pieces of basic information.
And once again, I agree with Marco that more flexibility about what you can include would be better.
I think we talked at a WWDC show this year, how they were adding all these features, but they were only available on the Siri watch face, which I also think is not a nice watch face.
And it's terrible to be forced to use it because that's the only place that the features you want are available.
The advantage of the Apple Watch and of all smartwatches should be, you know, A, smartness.
So, like, you know, contextual awareness, only showing you things that are relevant and hiding them when they're not.
Things like that.
Not doing things like having a hand that goes over the date window because it's software, you know.
But also, B...
the flexibility of watch face choice, like, the individuality of watch face choice.
It still kills me that third parties can't make watch faces, and I think it's a waste of the platform.
I know why I think Apple wants to keep that all to themselves, but I don't agree with that decision.
We have computers on our wrists now.
They can be smart.
They can show whatever we want them to show.
It drives me nuts that I'm stuck with these, like, eight designs that are, you know, increasingly getting dated and...
I would say almost none of which are classics that are worth keeping around, you know, as the only eight or 10 watch choices.
I want more.
I want someone else's take on what this face should be, you know, whether it's mine or whether it's other more talented watch designers who have a chance at it.
Like I just want more from this.
It's already bad enough that everyone in the room is the same watch.
When you also have only like two or three faces that are worth using, it just makes it feel old.
And like in this market, you need to keep things fresh because,
Apple is not going to make the next Submariner or Speedmaster or Aquanaut, even though their hands are very similar to the Aquanaut hands.
But they're not going to make the next iconic watch face.
They're just not.
The odds are against them.
There are very few iconic watch faces and they tend to happen 50 years ago and not a lot of new ones being created now.
So they need flexibility.
They need to keep it fresh, similar to how they are adding new straps and new colors fairly frequently to keep up with fashion.
They need to also add face flexibility and different styles of faces.
And they're just not doing that fast enough or not building the foundation necessary to let other people do it fast enough.
Basically, when I look at the Apple Watch, every face on it looks stale and old to me.
i mean i obviously deeply disagree but that's why you know opinions are opinions i love my apple watch it's not perfect i'm not trying to say it's perfect by any stretch of the imagination but i love it and and like i said before i had no intention of upgrading it this year i've been on a two or three year cycle i forget how long it was between i guess it was
two years because i went zero series zeros to series three it doesn't really matter though my point is just that i i'd never treated the apple watch as a yearly upgrade sort of thing but man this one looks real good looks real real good so we'll see if i can resist honestly it looks good to me too the only thing i'm worried about is so it's much thinner i love that uh but we just got i feel like with the series three like they added cellular and that's a big battery drain
Uh, how's the battery life going to be?
I mean, someone's presumably obviously everything in it takes less power, but the screen is bigger and it was already OLED.
So I'm, I'm wondering how battery life will stack up versus the comparatively massively thick, uh,
current series 3 cellular particularly for the cellular model to see how it shakes out uh battery wise i wouldn't be surprised to see its battery life in certain real world situations be not as good as the series 3 not that apple ever say that they probably say it has the same battery life even though it's thinner which plus or minus marketing fudging is probably true but i do worry a little bit about like like the very thin laptops that
true uncertain you know tests and use cases but if you're doing something heavy duty or using cellular a lot you get way worse battery life you could browse a few light web pages safari on the watch for 10 hours yeah i mean and again i'm not i'm not arguing against it i think it's probably the right trade-off to make like this this is the thing with the watches it's been that airstream trailer for a long time it actually even got thicker which is nearly unheard of right but we excused it because it's like well you're probably making it cellular right
They spent a long time, I think we've talked about this before, adding every feature we knew that the watch should eventually have to it, except for perhaps a camera, which they've never added.
And during that time, they said, we're not going to do the Apple thing.
We're not going to fight to make it thinner.
We're going to add battery life.
We're going to add features.
We're going to add performance.
And we're going to keep it more or less the same size.
Finally, after many years of that, they're at the point now where they're ready to bite the bullet and say, time to go thinner.
Uh, and I think it has shown admirable restraint, restraint that they've waited this long, but I think the first really thin one is the most likely to sacrifice something or be compromised in some way for the thinness.
Um, and I think it's fine.
Like, I think that's, you know, if you wait until you can do the thin one with zero compromises, you probably will have waited too long.
And as I said earlier, I think thinness is the, the major selling point of this watch.
And that's why I think everyone at Apple is probably expecting it to sell pretty well.
Okay.
Also, I mean, three things.
Number one, the Series 3 battery life is almost too good.
It's better than it needs to be for most people.
So I think they have some budget they can spend there.
Number two, I would not consider the additional screen size to be a major draw.
Because the Apple Watch is so aggressive about not using its screen more than it has to.
I'm guessing most of the power draw on the Apple Watch is like, you know, just keeping the processor and stuff alive while it's awake to run the apps.
Using the exercise sensor, which is mostly that giant light on the back of it, and then the continuous processing of that.
And the cellular radio, if it's on, or the other radios, if it's not.
Like, that seems to be the major power drugs.
I don't think the display is doing that much because it just is hardly ever on relative to the entire day.
And then third, cellular... Honestly, cellular to me has been a disappointment on it.
Now, I don't use it as heavily as Casey does, but what I have found is that the power-saving measures on the cellular radio are so aggressive that most of the time...
i am not at like when i if i leave with just the watch i miss calls i miss messages because i'm not always connected like i'm connected about half the time maybe and i know because i look at the explorer face because it's even though it's ugly as sin and it's the only reason i'd ever want to look at it i would look at the explorer face to see am i really connected right now and sure enough most of the time i get you know four or whatever it is five empty dots that i'm because i'm not actually connected
or I get no dots because the radio isn't even on because it's trying not to be on.
I find the power-saving nature of that radio is way too aggressive.
And I know why they do it.
They do it because it's a huge battery drain, and it is remarkable that we have it at all.
But to me, an unreliable cellular radio is worse than not having one at all.
You bring up the final thing that we're not ready for yet, but it's the next thing out there on the riser.
They added all the features they could think of to add to the watch, all the obvious features when they first introduced it that weren't there.
The final one is always on watch face, right?
And we don't have the tech for that yet, right?
But that is out there looming in the distance because once you can get to some technology that lets you have that face on all the time, either because you go from emissive to reflective,
Or you have an emissive one that can literally be on all day or some combination of the two that transparently switches between them.
That's the next big feature.
And I will probably have to wait at least four or five years for them to even have that for us to even know what kind of technology they would use to do that, let alone have it released.
Yeah.
uh there's always it's always an infinite appetite for battery and having a screen on all the time that's the next big consumer um right after they get the cell radio to be on much more often and be much more useful yeah having having some kind of always on screen would go a very long way to get me to go back to the apple watch
because that like one of the biggest things i love about regular watches is when you when you look at your wrist the time is always showing with apple watches even even the series three the apple watch still you need to like make that exaggerated motion sometimes and and and it's still like make you look like an idiot like you're sitting there turning your wrist like come on just show me the time you gotta tap it like come on what what the heck like
that is such a frustrating experience.
And it happens to me with the Apple watch when I'm wearing the Apple watch regular, that happens probably once a day at least.
And you know, regular watches, you just look at your wrist, you don't have to wait.
And it's always showing the time.
If Apple can get, can achieve that, which we know it's, you know, Android where watches can do that sometimes.
And yeah, they're giant monstrosity, but like we know the technology exists to do that.
So it's plausible.
Apple could do that sometime in the next few years.
Uh,
that would go a long way to get me you know back on that team it's interesting makes sense but it's interesting all right so we'll see what happens next week the uh event is the day we record and so i've already explained to aaron that i will be a ghost starting at one o'clock in the afternoon she probably won't see me the rest of the day
So I will be live streaming.
Unfortunately, I don't think any of us will be live tweeting because guess what?
Twitter sucks.
You know what?
Twitter sucks more and more recently.
So not only have they ruined live streaming by removing the streaming API from good apps, but also I'm noticing just the people.
Maybe this is just who I'm following or who follows me, but it just seems like everyone's constantly mad and being nasty to each other.
And it's just a very unpleasant... I mean, and I know this is, you know, this is not news to a lot of people on Twitter who have had much worse experiences than me for much longer.
But, I mean, I hardly ever want to go there at all anymore.
Like, it's so... It's just... It's such a crappy place.
Like, everyone... It's just... It's nasty.
It's just not fun.
It's horrible.
Like, I just... I really...
it seems like it's in a really bad place community-wise and mood and culture-wise.
And I don't think communities tend to recover from that no matter what the leadership does.
Yeah.
But we've spoken about that in plenty of places and plenty of times.
And yeah, and suffice it to say, Twitter sucks.
So let's do some Ask ATP, which although it comes in via Twitter, does not suck.
So JD Lewin writes, what advice would you offer to someone trying to get from no backups to the bare minimum of local and offsite backups?
And I presume all three of us have opinions about this.
My opinion is,
The very first thing you do is get a reasonably cheap hard drive that is at least as big as the one that is inside your computer and plug that in and make it a time machine volume.
So this way your computer backs up to that regularly.
And even if you leave it plugged in all the time, which has risks, it's better than nothing.
That's just the bare minimum.
That's step one.
And then step two, if you want to take it to the next level and do something that is off-site, like you said, then what I'd do is I would buy a portable hard drive that is at least as big as the hard drive in your machine.
And I would also buy SuperDuper.
And I would clone your computer to that drive at least once a month.
Yeah.
then if you're really smart, you will store that hard drive like at work or something like that.
And this way, if your entire house, God forbid, goes up in flames, that portable hard drive is still sitting at like your office or whatever, and you can get to it if need be.
That is my personal opinion.
And then if you really want to go triple down, you could do, you know, backblazer crash plan or something like that.
That's my two cents.
John, how do you feel about this?
I think you're overcomplicating it because realistically, people will not bring that hard drive back and forth from their office.
They'll forget about it.
They won't do it as often as they want.
It will be terrible.
So my advice would be, step zero is use and pay for the iCloud backup feature on your iOS devices.
We just think we're talking about computers here, but you're going through no backups, right?
iOS devices, enable the iCloud backup.
And when it tells you you don't have enough space, pay for it.
I know it's annoying.
It's fine.
Like just you just bought a like a thousand dollar phone, pay three dollars a month for the storage or whatever.
Just do it because people have tons of important stuff on their phones.
And iCloud backup is way better than nothing.
And once you set it up and pay for it, you don't really have to think about it anymore.
It does it while you plug in at night when it's charging.
It's fine.
Second, time machine.
Just what Casey said, because it's built into the OS.
Assuming you have a Mac, it's the least hassle way to do backups.
And third, cloud backup like Backblaze.
So that's what I do.
iOS, iCloud backups, time machine.
I don't say this often, but John is 100% right, and I agree with everything you just said.
Yeah, I think I can get behind that too.
All right, Stephen Kim writes, I recall you guys saying that part of pre-ordering an iPhone requires you to go through your carrier, AT&T or Verizon or whatever.
I'm on a prepaid plan.
Does Apple simply not offer a pre-order on a carrier-free unlocked iPhone?
And I wanted to publicly call out that the reason I'm answering this question is because Stephen's avatar photo is tremendous.
Anyway, the thing with buying an iPhone or pre-ordering an iPhone is that they really do, like you said, want you to verify with your carrier that you're able to do this.
And I think this is in many ways a holdover from back when Americans did this on a two-year contract.
And so what I would recommend, and I don't know if they offer this for pre-orders on day one.
I have this vague recollection that this is not usually offered until a couple weeks later.
But see if they offer a T-Mobile phone because T-Mobile doesn't give a crap whether you have a plan or not.
And typically you can order a T-Mobile phone unlocked and it won't be a problem.
And you don't have to verify with T-Mobile.
But again, I'm not confident that it will be available on day one.
But that's what I would look at.
Also be very aware that there are different versions of, say, the iPhone X because there are certain versions that work with certain bands of certain cellular networks.
So the AT&T one on the inside actually has a different radio or whatever than the Verizon one.
The chat room is saying that's not true.
I am pretty darn sure that's true.
But obviously verify my work here.
It's true on some models.
Like some years it's true.
Some years it's not true.
So do your research.
Yeah.
Do your research, but I would at least look at T-Mobile and also, again, verify it against whatever your particular carriers are.
My thought is don't worry about having to go through your carrier stuff because you don't have to worry about that if you don't try to buy the phone right away.
Wait till everyone else bought the phone.
Wait till everyone else finds out that they've been.
Wait till all the batteries explode.
Wait till all that stuff is done and just stroll into an Apple store a couple months later and pick up your nice shiny new phone.
that is the easiest way to do it i'm not sure that's the quickest obviously but that's the easiest way it's the quickest once you make the decision to buy and just leading up you say i'm not going to buy because that's probably what i'm going to do i'm not going to buy now i'll buy it eventually that's what i did with my seven it's like because i wanted the jet black and people were having contention for the jet black don't stay up late at night try to order it don't try to order it the first day just wait a while and just get it whenever
fine all right then a stunningly attractive person by the name of casey list wrote in and asked what is the cheapest apple product i was thinking your own questions to ask it's it's happening it's happening at least you put it third i like that
Well, I kind of felt like this was a segment, but I knew we would be busy in the main part of the show.
And I wanted to imply that this should not go on for three hours.
So everyone, look at your clocks.
I was thinking at, I think it was either dinner or maybe when we went on our walk today, if you were to define cheapest as best value for money.
So I understand that you don't have to agree with that definition.
But for the purpose of this conversation, we'll say looking at you, John.
That's a totally different thing.
Okay, fine.
What is the best value for money Apple product?
Call it whatever you want.
Didn't we answer that a few months ago in Ask ATV?
Did we?
Yeah, we did.
Because I'm pretty sure I said the cheap iPad mini and the iPhone 7 and the 15-inch base model.
Okay, so let me rephrase my question a little bit.
Because the genesis of my question was me thinking, of all the Apple devices that I own, what do I think was the best...
gave me the most amount of joy for the least amount of money.
Now that could be... And here I did all this research about what's cheapest.
Sorry.
So... You're going to say like the lightning to headphone adapter?
Yes.
So the lightning to headphone adapter is the cheapest hardware product Apple sells.
If you could think about maybe, you know, do iTunes songs count?
Those are a dollar or less in certain other currencies.
But the lightning to headphone adapter is the cheapest.
It's cheaper than the MagSafe 2 to MagSafe 1 adapter by 99 cents.
at $9 exactly instead of $9.99.
The cheapest hardware product Apple has ever sold, to my knowledge, is the developer Apple TV, which they sold for $1 to developers.
I bought one.
But that was not publicly available to everybody, so maybe that doesn't count, and it isn't currently for sale.
And if you're looking at what is the cheapest...
hardware computing device that is like a full standalone computing device that they sell it's the ipod touch which is 200 bucks unless you want to go refurb in which case you can get a refurb ipod touch for 139 dollars that is the cheapest standalone computing device apple currently sells the cheapest computer that is like a typical mac is a refurb mac mini for 419 dollars which by the way i think is still the current model
It is so us that the one time that you do homework was to answer, I guess it's to answer the question that I asked on the show notes, but not at all the question I was trying to ask.
Oh, answering the questions in the show notes, one more thing I would put on my old Manhattan, but I couldn't remember the details of this.
So maybe you can someone write in and tell me, even if it doesn't make it into follow-up because Marco demands to cut it.
The programmer switch for the original Mac and many models after it, if that was sold separately, that may have been cheaper than a dollar.
I know you two don't know what the programmer switch is.
It's fine.
We'll just move on.
Is it literally like a switch?
It was not even a switch.
It was a single piece of single color molded plastic.
Wow.
Why?
It's a very important piece of hardware.
I used it all the time on the old Macs.
You don't want to know why.
I don't want to know why.
All right, so what I was trying to say is, what Apple product brings you the most joy, preferably for the least amount of money?
Because I was debating with myself, like, the iPhone is very, very expensive, and I use it constantly constantly.
But I don't know if I would say it brings me joy.
And this kind of relates to our conversation about whimsy.
But I was thinking about it, and I think that the AirPods for me, which were something like $150, $180.
I don't remember how much they are now.
I bought them two years ago.
Yeah.
For between $150 and $200, the AirPods I have used pretty much every day since I bought them, and even though they have their quirks and foibles, they still make me extremely happy.
They make me extremely happy for under $200.
My iPhone makes me very, very happy, but is way more than $200.
So...
My question is, in that vein, phrase it however you would like, what do you think is the best, perhaps, value for money, whimsy per dollar, however you want to phrase it, what is your favorite Apple product in that regard?
So I should clarify that one of them, which I have never used, would have to be the cheap iPad.
That, I think, is an amazing value for the money.
But I'm not that much of an iPad person, as we said earlier.
So my personal choice would probably have to be a Mac of some kind.
I don't think any of the Macs are great values right now except maybe the MacBook Air.
But for the most part, I don't think any of them are great values, which is why it's hard to answer this.
But I get the most joy out of Macs.
And I love iPhones, too.
I really love iPhones.
But Macs, to me, are where it's at.
So if you're looking at what Mac I enjoy the most, it's the iMac Pro, which is not cheap or a good value.
So it's hard for me to say.
But...
But if you're looking at actual best value, in my opinion, in the Mac lineup, I'm going to still have to say either the Air or the base model 15-inch and the old one if you can get it.
No, I mean, I think in your case, I'm doing a poor job phrasing the question, but I think the answer for you is the iMac Pro because, yeah, it is a lot of money.
but it brings you in a commensurate amount of joy.
And to you, that trade-off is worth it.
I'm not saying that's right or wrong.
It's just that to you, that is the best trade-off.
So I think you're... You know what?
I will also say my bright orange Apple leather case for my iPhone X.
That's another really great answer, given how you were talking about it earlier.
Yeah, it was, I think, $40 or $50.
So it's not... A phone case being $40 or $50, yeah, that's somewhat extravagant.
I mean, cases aren't that cheap.
Even a cheap, crappy case is probably $30.
So it's not...
It's not super cheap, not super expensive.
But I saw it in the store in California when we all were there together.
And I thought it was ridiculous to buy myself a leather case because I had other cases and it was fine.
But I really, really enjoy it.
And it makes me very happy.
And it makes me so happy that I'm very tempted to...
the day before the event order another one on the assumption that it might fix the iphone 10 s2 whatever like it might fit that phone if they don't change the camera bump shape and if it doesn't fit it i can just return it within the 15 days but if i buy it if i wait till the day after they might change the colors and and yours your existing one is kind of in the position that you would like another you just want a new one because new phone
If it fits the next phone, I'm probably going to want to keep it on for a whole other year.
And so if that's the case, I might want to back up.
Fair enough.
That's an interesting point.
I really love this bright orange leather.
It's so cool.
And yeah, it is starting to wear and darken around the edges like they always do.
So I wouldn't mind having an extra one if it will fit my phone for the next year.
John?
You stole my answer with the AirPods because I feel like they've made the biggest change in my life for the amount of money that they are.
They seem like they were expensive when I first bought them, again, mostly because of these small things.
It shouldn't cost as much money and they're so tiny, right?
But they, you know, I use them every single day and the change from having to deal with cords to having to deal with these is just life changing.
You should never go back.
uh despite my annoyance with tapping my stupid ear and not being able to control volume like i've i've mastered the art of of hitting the volume buttons when my phone is in my pocket like that's now a skill that i possess purely because of airpods and it's still 100 worth it like i would never go back to two corded things i love them and every every day i think about it i'm like how much more than 160 would you pay for these airpods i would pay a frightening amount more at this point like i would pay like a daily i would pay like 10 a day to keep using these things it's ridiculous
Yep.
That sounds preposterous.
Like putting myself in the headspace of, you know, pre-AirPod ownership, that sounds ridiculous.
But you know what?
I think it is certainly possible I would do the same thing.
I love these things.
And I thought that they were obscenely expensive when I bought them.
And I kind of bought them on a lark because at the time, you know, they were hard to come by and somebody local had them and was willing to sell them to me for, you know, face value, so to speak.
Yeah.
And I just kind of went on a limb and thought, well, I'll give it a shot.
And I love these things.
And I would pay a lot more than a hundred whatever dollars to get the next pair if I had to.
Thank you to our sponsors this week, Squarespace, Casper, and Creative Selection.
And we'll talk to you next week.
Now the show is over.
They didn't even mean to begin.
Cause it was accidental.
Accidental.
Oh, it was accidental.
Accidental.
John didn't do any research.
Margo and Casey wouldn't let him.
Cause it was accidental.
It was accidental.
And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM.
And if you're into Twitter.
You can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S So that's Casey Liss M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-N-T Marco Arment S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A Syracuse It's accidental Accidental They didn't mean to Accidental Accidental Tech Podcast So long
It's not like you're going to buy a car in the next nine hours.
How many hours was it until you bought a car?
More importantly, how many hours were you a single-car household?
Because we got to know that you gave it a good try.
Like, you gave it a chance, at least.
Did you?
Here's the thing.
Marco has a tendency to cut things that are boring or useless, which is very useful.
Closed as feature.
Works as intended.
Yeah.
yeah the one time i needed him to cut something he didn't cut it and the thing i needed him to cut was me talking about how i should really remain a one car family which all was true and probably still is but that was recorded and my time between nine and midnight on wednesday the what 29th of august it was like 11 p.m okay so how many hours were you a one car family
11-ish a.m.
We sold the BMW.
Okay.
At 5 o'clock the evening of the 30th, I drove away from Lindsey Volkswagen in the Washington, D.C.
area in a Golf R.
So, like, what is it, like, 20 hours?
Roughly.
I was close with 18 hours.
Yeah, but here's the thing, though.
I was closest without going over.
Price is right rules.
No, but here's the thing, though.
You have to remember that we have effectively been a one-car household with asterisks.
Since WWDC, because I believe it was right after WWDC that my car really crapped the bed.
I forget exactly when it was, and I'm scared to look it up.
But it was in June for sure.
Because after that, I borrowed my dad's Jeep for a couple of weeks long enough to get me through the end of regular work.
And then we all went to London.
And then I didn't have any other car until almost a week ago now.
So, yes, in a literal sense, you are absolutely right, and you should be making merciless amounts of fun of me, and I'm sure that will be forthcoming.
But in a literal sense, yeah, we were a one-car family for like eight hours, not even six hours.
No, less than that.
You get the point.
But realistically—
So we've really been a one-car family for a couple of months.
Now, the asterisks on that are, yes, the BMW was sitting in the driveway.
So in a desperation scenario, we could have used it.
But the car seats hadn't been in it for forever.
So the only real use it had was for me in a desperation scenario, because otherwise I would have to load up the car seats.
And that's...
Not an insignificant amount of effort.
And so, I mean, I hadn't moved the BMW more than about 10 feet since June until the time that I prepared to sell it.
So we really were effectively a one-car family.
The only other asterisk I have is that, you know, on and off, we did have a Golf R. We had a GTI.
Yeah.
We were borrowing another we were borrowing a friend's car for a little while, which will eventually be a Casey on cars.
So we did have some other cars running through the household.
But in terms of, you know, anytime we didn't have a pressed or friend's car or family's car, we were one car household.
And it is livable.
It is definitely livable.
It's just not fun.
And I wanted a treat and I got myself a treat.
this is like quite an explanation of how tons of cars being at your house means you're effectively a one-car family yeah we have like 20 cars at the house effectively you get it especially if you don't count the car that i own that runs that is in my driveway but that i refuse to drive right you you completely understand it i'm glad i'm glad we're on the same page you have a very full garage for a one-car family so you know i only have one question
what color is it it's blue and you can kiss my well white is it really blue it is really blue is it a very light shade of blue no it is not a light shade of blue it is oh my god you're lucky the kids are asleep
It is not a light shade of blue.
I'm just saying, like, the trend in cars in recent years has been to be a little bit more bold with the primary colors and not, like, mix in, not make them sort of darker and subdued.
So the blue is more of a vibrant blue than, like, a midnight blue or a navy blue.
Yeah, okay, that's fair.
A lot of cars come in that more, like, the Tesla's like that, too.
They come in a very, I'm not going to say play school blue.
Yours is kind of more of a metallic blue.
Yeah, I think that I mean, the actual name of the color is lapis blue.
But yes, it is.
It is not bad.
That's not bad.
Yeah.
So I've dropped a picture in the private chat room, which is why Marco's reacting.
It's really not a bad blue at all.
I quite like it.
It's not as good as the Le Mans blue that BMW did that I love, but it's actually pretty darn close.
And I am very, very pleased with it.
um the car is great i love it it does have it is to some degree a compromise machine you know they're a compromise it doesn't have a sunroof it doesn't have some of the other things i like but it does it does do the things that i care about most really really really well which is allow me to drive in the way in which i want both in terms of having a six speed and having all-wheel drive it allows me to do the things i want the way i want to and again i really think the color is really really good
And so I got it for what I think was a pretty darn good deal.
I'm not going to get into the particulars about it, but I think that I got a really good deal on it.
Are you leasing or not leasing?
I am not leasing.
And the financing worked out really nicely.
And it has a six-year warranty.
So if anything within reason goes bad in six years, it's covered.
I mean, obviously not a wear item, but anything else, if it goes bad in six years, it's covered.
Yeah.
um the only problem i have with it is that i've only put something like 200 miles on it in the last week and about 100 or so of them were bringing it home from the dc area and so i said broken in by sometime in 2020 i'm hopeful yes
But I did say to Aaron that that, you know, just for what it's worth, if you this is the most you will ever like this car because I'm limiting myself to, you know, keeping it under 4000 RPM.
I'm trying not to, you know, just sit on cruise control if I'm ever on the highway, basically trying to treat the car like the manual asks me to treat it.
And so I told Aaron, if you like this car now, that's wonderful.
But if you don't like it, it's only going to get it worse from here when I can use the rest of the rev range and generally drive like the BMW driver I probably still am.
It's not the car that she's disliking, you realize.
Well, she's not a big hatchback person.
And truth be told, I'm not generally either.
But this was the best compromise I could make with myself.
And so...
Yeah, I think you're right.
It's more about the squishy bits behind the wheel that bother her than the car itself.
I can't believe you're back into your garage.
Why wouldn't I back into my garage?
That's insane.
I'll tell you what.
When I was unloading from some large trips over the last week or so, I would back into the garage to do it because I was unloading into the room behind the garage that made the most sense to have the trunk right there.
and i really hated backing into the garage but i really love pulling out of the garage after i had backed in like that was really it was really nice i was you feel like you're in the bat cave yeah like there was like a for a few brief minutes there i'm like you know casey's on to something here but then i realized you know that's terrible to do all the time you realize backing into your garage is annoying it sucks yeah like it sucks to do it on the way out but it's really nice in the way or yeah vice versa
The thing I understand your perspective and I'm not here to change your mind, but I think what most people and I'm not just picking on the two of you, what most people don't realize is over time you get used to it.
And I can I can I've made the speech to you two before, but I can back into a parking spot or into the garage extremely, extremely, extremely quickly and surely not as quickly as pulling in forwards, but nearly as quickly as.
And so I much prefer it because when I'm ready to leave, I just leave.
I don't have to – I mean, not that I don't have to look.
That was what I was about to say.
That's a terrible – Not that I doubt your skills, Casey, but your garage is cavernous.
If you ever visit me again, I should ask you to try backing your car into my garage.
I will absolutely do it.
But I agree with your point that my garage, by comparison, is cavernous.
How do you feel about an inch and a half clearance on all sides?
Good luck.
I mean, I could do it.
It would not be fun, but I could do it.
Your garage, Casey, can almost fit a third car.
No, that is not true.
You could definitely fit a motorcycle.
And if you got rid of the stairs, you could probably fit a third smart car if you parked close to that.
You could probably fit a Fiat 500 between those two.
It also looks like your car could fit inside Aaron's car.
Yeah, that too.
Oh, yeah, this thing is tiny compared to even the BMW in terms of footprint.
Although on the inside, I don't feel like it's particularly smaller.
It's bigger on the inside.
It is tart.
It's blue.
I haven't even seen Doctor Who and I get that reference.
So you want to give us any backstory behind this?
Because on the show, I just re-listened to the episode, and I was hearing what you were saying at the end.
And you said you covered all bases.
You're like, right now, I think we're going to be a one-car family.
See how that's going to be.
But then you also said, but who knows?
Maybe by the time this is out, I'll have a new car.
So it seems like you had all the possibilities going in your mind.
But you're still coming down on the idea that you had basically...
decided that you're not going to get a car and that you said you were depressed about it.
So my question is, coming out of that show, what happens?
Coming out of the show, do you...
you know, talk it over with Aaron some more and say, you know, I'm feeling depressed about it.
And she encourages you and says, oh, I don't want you to feel depressed.
You should just get the car.
Do you convince yourself that you should just get the car and then convince Aaron that you think it's a good idea?
Like, what is the decision-making process?
How do you get from the headspace you were at the end of the show to the point where you're plunking down hard-earned cash for a new car?
It's a fair question.
I think...
Even sitting here now with two cars in my garage, I think the smarter decision would have been not to buy it.
But Erin was on board with being a two-car family.
She wasn't necessarily on board with the idea of getting that particular car or really any car at that particular price point.
I mean, in her in her world, I think she would have, you know, in a figurative sense, she would have handed me a five thousand dollar wad of cash and said, go buy a Civic or something like that.
You know, in other words, you know, we have the Volvo for when we want to be.
um spoiled and then we would have some sort of you know i don't want to say beater because i mean a five thousand dollar civic is not a beater but you know what i mean like something that is considerably less fancy for when we need it and unequivocally that is the more prudent thing to do because aaron is in every measurable way a more prudent person than i am but um uh
I think it was a combination of just as much as I joke, I just wanted it.
I wanted to try to get one before I couldn't get one with a stick.
And I'm fearful that even a model year 2019 may not have a stick.
I have no indication of that, but I'm fearful of it.
In fact, just earlier today, somebody tweeted at me that the new GT500 or whatever the equivalent thereof, that the new Mustang apparently will not have a stick, which is mind-boggling to me.
But more than anything else, generally speaking, I would just sit there and wait for used cars to appear that matched what I wanted.
And especially in this case, it's very easy because there's effectively no options.
Your only options are color and transmission.
And that's what I did with the BMW.
The problem though, is that I really wanted that six year warranty and I, and I basically wanted it up front.
I mean, I believe it may be transferable, but I wanted to use all six years of that warranty because I keep a car for a long time.
And, um, and so I, I convinced myself that it was okay.
And, and what I was based, I think I'd said on the show, I'd already started negotiating with this dealer out of DC and, um,
I was pulling on that thread just to see if it would end up somewhere good.
Like, if they had said to me, you know, oh, we're going MSRP and that's that, you know, screw you, then I probably would not have a car right now.
And not to say that I figuratively stole it, but...
I am satisfied with – by that I mean it wasn't cheap by any stretch of the imagination, but I am satisfied with the price I paid for it.
And in my experience, having spoken to a few dealers, pretty much no one deals on Golf R's because they're so esoteric and unique and most dealers get so few of them.
This particular dealer claims, and I have reason to believe they're right, that they get something like 50 or 60 copies of this car in a year.
So it's not the sort of thing where it's a very low supply.
And so they were willing to deal on it a bit.
And that worked out really nicely.
Additionally, I had resolved my woes with the BMW and got what I thought was a reasonable price for the BMW.
Yeah.
And so all the stars kind of aligned and said, you know, if you really want to do this, you can do this.
And that's basically what Aaron said to me as well.
So I'm very, despite what it sounds, I'm very happy with it.
But
I am slightly ashamed given what I had said last episode, because I really did believe it at the time, or maybe it's just that I wanted to believe it at the time.
And so now I'm kind of doing a walk of shame about it all a week later.
But, you know, here I am.
That's part of putting your life on the Internet.
Okay, so you are a successful professional.
Marco's trying to convince you to buy more expensive.
He already bought it.
He already bought the car, Marco.
It's too late.
It's too late.
You are, what, 36?
Yes.
Okay.
It actually occurred to me, is this my midlife crisis car?
Because it may be.
Not yet.
No, that comes later.
So you are a 36-year-old working professional and
You are successful in your career.
Part of your career and a massive part of your hobby and identity and passion is cars.
As much as we talked last episode about it being practical to, you know, have a one-car family, there was no way that you were going to be a one-car family.
Oh, no.
No, definitely not.
Especially when the one car was not your car.
Yeah.
You are a car person.
It is such a critical part of what makes you happy.
It's okay to spend money on things that make you happy if you can.
You're not putting yourself into bankruptcy by doing this, right?
You totally can carry this, and so you are.
You are choosing to spend money on something that makes you really, really happy, that you care very deeply about.
And you're doing it in a pretty reasonable way.
You didn't buy the Giulia.
you didn't buy an m3 like price wise you're in a you're in like you know not not a cheap car but for a car that a successful 36 year old programmer would buy who loves cars you did okay like you didn't you didn't go crazy on it right
You shouldn't feel bad about doing something nice for yourself sometimes, especially in an area that is so important to you and that gives you so much joy every day.
You care very deeply about cars.
There was no way you were ever going to not have a car that was yours, that was the car you really wanted for you.
That was never going to happen.
And it shouldn't happen, and you shouldn't feel bad about that.
And I completely agree.
And I appreciate it.
I really, truly do.
I think part of my crisis about all of this is that when I was looking at a future of having no car to call my own...
Even though, you know, legally speaking, both of us own both of these cars.
And I mean, Aaron was very, very good about, you know, letting me drive the Volvo, which I consider to be her car.
And I think she mostly considers it to be her car.
She's very good about letting me drive it a lot when it was clear that I basically didn't have a car to drive anymore.
But it caused a little bit of a crisis, an internal crisis within me when I got really and truly deeply upset about the thought of not having a car of my own or perhaps not having one that I'm excited about.
And I was – I mean depressed is a strong word and everything is relative.
That's what you said on the last show.
That's what I was saying.
You said the word depressed.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I was kind of depressed about it.
And then it's like this self-fulfilling cycle.
Now we're getting deep into analog territory.
But then it's like this self-fulfilling cycle of like, grow up, you baby.
It's a freaking car.
Like, why are you hanging so much of this on a freaking car?
And then I was getting annoyed with myself about the fact that I was getting kind of depressed.
And so it was this kind of cycle that I still think I have some unresolved...
feelings or thoughts or issues to get through.
But all of that is to say that I think you hit the nail on the head, Margo, that a lot of my identity is wrapped up within this.
And that's probably not healthy and probably not good, but it is a fact.
And
And so one way or another, a lot of my identity is wrapped up in having a car that I enjoy.
It doesn't necessarily have to be the fanciest car on the block.
It doesn't necessarily have to be the fastest or the most expensive or whatever, but it needs to be something that I enjoy.
And white.
And occasionally white.
For the record, ladies and gentlemen, I announced this in the Relay Slack the day after it happened, or maybe the day it happened, I don't recall.
Yeah.
And Marco's response, I would like to read to you, it is as follows.
That's an unusual shade of white, which annoyed me so deeply because that was such a perfect thing to say.
Everyone else is being all congratulatory.
Then Marco comes with, that's an unusual shade of white.
I'm still laughing about that.
So here's the thing.
So you're justifying this as though it's about personality.
That's good.
You should have a car because you can afford it.
It makes you very happy.
And you know what?
This is going to get briefly very dark for a moment.
And this might give you more of an issue.
I'm going to try to make it.
No, here we go.
Do you know something we don't about his health?
I think about this.
No, I think about this stuff more than I probably should.
You're like halfway through your life.
yeah yeah maybe a little less if you know if you're lucky less than halfway but in the ballpark of halfway yeah right absolutely and we're you know you're only we you we are only going to be young for so long you know we're not i mean by by kids standards we're already not young like you know our kids think we're the boring old people but like you're only going to be able to enjoy cars and drive cars for a certain number of years in your life and
And you are probably halfway through that number of years where you're going to be driving cars.
And additionally, as you said, the kind of cars you like to drive are going away.
There aren't a lot of years left where you will be able...
and motivated to buy those cars where it will make sense or even be possible to own them where it would even be legal to drive them on the roads like these all have end dates that we can kind of see looming on the horizon maybe not soon but not you know not 50 years from now probably less than that right so for god's sakes enjoy this time
This is kind of like the peak of everything.
Your body still doesn't ache getting into cars like this.
Your left leg still functions enough that you can use a clutch without causing RSI in your leg or soreness or having bad knees or arthritis or anything.
Enjoy this time.
Because you can.
You have it now, and it's not going to last forever.
And maybe it's going to last 40 more years.
That'd be great if you actually are able-bodied and alive for 40 more years in order to drive six-shift cars that are still available and legal.
That'll be great.
But it's probably going to be less than that.
So enjoy this time while we have it.
Yeah, I think you're completely right.
And it was funny.
Somebody tweeted at me earlier today, and I don't have the tweet handy and I apologize, but it was the tweet about the Mustang going automatic in the future.
And this individual said, we're on the wrong side of history, which admittedly is like a very, very overblown way to phrase this.
But I think it's true.
Like it occurred to me that
This is something that I believe devoutly, that driving a stick is more fun and, to me, is better.
Yes, you can make plenty of arguments that I'm wrong, and clearly it seems that that is the case, that I am wrong.
But it was an odd realization when this person on Twitter said this to me, that I kind of am on the wrong side of history.
I like to think I'm on the right side on a lot of other things.
We've talked about a lot of these things on this show, but...
On this one, I think John and I are on the wrong side of history, and that's an uncomfortable and unfortunate realization to come to.
That's the wrong phrasing.
That phrase is used when people are, like, prejudiced, and that prejudice goes away.
This is not an attitude thing.
This is just merely we are—I think we are appropriately aged.
Like, we're entering an anachronism, right?
Because when we were growing up, that was the thing.
But that's true of everybody.
People like old music, old songs.
And you don't say you're on the wrong side of the history because you like the hits of the 70s because you grew up in the 70s.
I'm sorry, you're on the wrong side of history.
People like different music now.
Yeah, they do like different music now, but I'm not on the wrong side of history because, you know, I like REM, U2 and Bruce Springsteen.
So I reject that characterization and I think you're fine.
well that's because you and i agree but you you and i are screwed though because i mean i really genuine and i think i i said this about the bmw but i i really think this is the last time i'll buy a stick shift car not because i want to but but yeah but you you've all you've all totally abandoned me right because you no longer buy cars marco no longer buys gas cars i am the sole survivor who buys cars not hatchbacks
With stick shifts.
Car-shaped cars, is that your thing?
Yeah, car-shaped cars with stick shifts.
I'm the last one standing.
That's all right.
John doesn't think my dog is a dog either, so, you know, join the club.
Casey made a joke in the Slack saying, I asked him, like, did you get it with a stick shift?
He's like, well, about that.
And I was 100% convinced that he had gotten the PDK or whatever the...
I'm still offended by that.
I was totally convinced.
Why?
Because you had it on the GTI, which I'm sure we'll see a video about someday.
And you've driven so many cars like that, and you're like, oh, even the automatics are fine, and I liked it in the Julian, this, that, and the other thing.
I totally believed it.
So you are a traitor to stick kind, and I am the last person standing.
How am I a traitor?
I just spent... You already said this, but it's going to be the last one you're going to buy.
And I've literally never owned a car that was not a stick, and neither is my wife.
It's not because that's what I want.
I just don't think I'll have an option anymore unless I go to something that's effectively vintage at that point.
If I continue to want new-ish cars, and again, I didn't expect to buy, well, actually two new cars in as many years.
Aaron and I both were perfectly happy on the used car train, but for various sundry reasons, maybe excuses, we ended up on a brief new car train for a minute.
And I think the next time, presumably in five or six or 10 years, probably six or less, I will probably end up in a used car because it's a much better value for money.
And that is the only way I'll get a stick shift, I think, because I really think in the next five to 10 years, there will be no affordable new cars that have a stick.
I mean, I've heard rumors that BMW is dropping it from the 3 Series.
And they seem to me to be like the last holdout.
No, no, it's coming back.
A couple of car makers have reversed their decision and they're bringing the sticks back.
So it's this.
Well, I'm curious, John, like, like, do you think so?
You know, you're currently a few years into your into your accord.
You're probably going to keep it for at least another five years at least.
Right.
Do you think in five years, Honda will still be selling stick shift accords?
uh i don't know it's hard to tell uh maybe uh because honda as we well if you're a honda customer you know this kind of move slowly like they move slowly into hybrids they haven't really moved into electrics at all look at the interiors of the cars look what they do they're not on the cutting edge of any trend so it's possible they could still be selling them uh but we'll see
But someone will be like, I don't think they'll be gone from cars that are in my price range.
They may be gone from cars that I want to buy because I don't want to spend that much money on a car.
So we'll see.
But Casey was making it sound like he would choose not to get a stick.
No, no, no, no, no.
That's not what I'm that may have been what it sounded like.
But that was not at all what I was trying to say.
I will forever and always choose it.
I think you I totally believe you would choose not to get a stick.
especially like if you got electric, you'd be like, well, you know, stick is now not relevant anymore.
And I'm excited about electric carbon in six years.
It could be that there are electric cars that are, that are in a price you want to pay, uh, that has the performance you want.
I, I can, I could see myself weighing the pros and cons and landing in an electric car because I feel like overall that is better.
So I agree with you there, but as long as I'm buying internal combustion engine cars, uh,
Unless there's just nothing that's either in my price range, this is what you were just saying, it's not in my price range, or maybe it's just nothing but econo crap boxes that I'm not interested in.
And so this kind of middle of the road between the quote unquote, or I guess I should say the M3s of the world, I was going to say like Ferraris, but the M3s of the world.
And the like, I don't know, what's the really tiny Chevys of the world?
I don't even know what they're called.
But, you know, if there's nothing in the like normal area, then maybe I wouldn't buy a stick because there's just nothing available that I'm interested in.
But as long as there's at least one car that I'm interested in that offers a stick, then that's what I'll be buying.
Well, congratulations.
Thank you.
You're giving yourself a bunch of crap about this.
But ultimately, this is cause for celebration.
It is.
You've gone through a long, horrible period of car drama with your car breaking and failing, having a brief flirtation with Jeep Wranglers and other horrible other options.
Oh, oh, oh.
You avoided many much more states.
Yeah.
Oh, I have news about this.
Oh, no.
I apologize for interrupting your summary.
Guess what happened?
I think it was two days after I bought my car.
So I get a text from my brother-in-law.
This is Aaron's older brother.
And he says, how did it start?
I don't remember.
But it was something along the lines of, hey, is there any chance you can give me a ride to DC?
And I said, why?
Oh, well, I think I'm going to buy a car there.
I said, OK, where?
Oh, at Lindsay Jeep.
And this is the same conglomerate that I bought my Volkswagen from.
Long story short, I did not need to give him a ride there, but it turns out my brother-in-law, within 48 hours of me buying my Volkswagen, he bought himself a brand new Jeep Wrangler.
Four-door, soft top, automatic, turbo four-cylinder.
Marco, go ahead and ask.
What color was it?
Turns out it's white.
Turns out.
This is his car, so I don't want to hear it.
Is this fitting with his personality?
Is he a Jeep Wrangler person?
He had a 4Runner that was fairly old that he traded in, and so it fits.
He himself has a 4Runner.
And because it's white, is he 80?
No, he is a year older than I. He's 37, going to be 38 at the very end of the year.
You have lots of time left in life to buy white cars.
Oh, my word.
But yeah, when he pulled up in it, because he swung by the house the day he got it and pulled up, and I was like, oh, my God, it's a white Wrangler.
Marco's going to lose it.
So in the family, the extended family, I should say, this is, again, Aaron's brother, my brother-in-law, in the family is now a white Wrangler, which I thought was quite funny.
um but it's very nice i took a small ride in it i haven't driven it yet but i took a ride in it and again i mean it's it's a box on wheels so you have to take everything with a grain of salt or you know keep keep everything's relative but it is quite nice and automatic too it sounds awesome no the turbo four is supposed to be really good i haven't driven yeah a white automatic jeep wrangler i'd forgotten that aaron's car wasn't white because looking at this picture it looks like a white car and i parked next to a blue car but it's not technically white is it it's a very light silver
It's a very light silver.
This picture, it does look somewhat white, but it is a very light silver.
It looks like a gigantic white car against a miniature blue car.
That is more accurate than not, I'd say.
Look, even though you were a little on the fence about hatchbacks, and even though I recognize that part of the reason you chose this was because of the combination of features it offered, not necessarily the look of it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You're still a car person.
Hot hatches are a major category of cars that lots of car enthusiasts very much love.
You should know what it's like to own one.
You know, like it's this is totally in line with being a car enthusiast and being the kind of car enthusiast you are like you should own a hot hatch at some point.
Even if you decide in three to five years it's not for you and you want a different kind of car-shaped car or something worse, then you can do that.
That's fine.
But you should get this out of your system.
Yeah, I think that's fair.
In a final piece of miscellaneous car-related things, the Volkswagen allows you to put in an SD card to read music off of.
which is funny because one of the things that I thought I might be losing leaving the BMW was my onboard 10-gig platter hard drive.
It's a miracle that thing still worked.
And I had put a whole bunch of music on there.
I mean, the car had Bluetooth.
That's right.
I forgot you could do that.
And I actually really enjoyed it because most often than not, there's a list of, I don't know, maybe 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 albums or whatever that I listen to on and off generally, or I'm listening to a podcast.
It's one or the other.
Well, I thought that all of that was going to have to go away, that I wouldn't be able to, you know, load any music onto the car itself.
But it turns out there's SD card slots in the glove box so I can put music on.
And so I've been enjoying over the last day or two amassing.
I bought a 64 gig, you know, what is it, a micro SD card that has the, like, regular SD caddy, you know what I'm talking about?
Yeah, they all come with little dappers, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
And so I've been loading that up.
And it's pretty neat.
It's...
It's fun to go through because I usually use Spotify all the time.
And so I've been going through like my actual iTunes music where I actually own it and finding all of my music that I haven't really listened to in a while and loading it up to have in the car.
So I'm excited.
It would be cool if the dashboard had a USB-C slot, and then you could hook up an adapter for an SD card reader.
Good God.
Because there's not really enough room on the car to have anything more than just two small USB-C ports.
And really, with an adapter, you can make that into anything, so it's actually better that there's not an SD card slot there.
It's courage and progress.
But yeah, hopefully we'll be able to see you guys sometime this year and you can check it out and make fun of me for my blue car.
How does that feel?
It actually does look pretty nice, like in the pictures and everything.
Thank you.
I gotta say.
No, it does look good.
I'm very happy.
Well, I'm happy it's not white in the name of good taste.
I'm actually kind of sad it's not white for the joke potential.
I know.
I know.
That makes me extremely happy, actually.
There's always bird poop.
Yeah.
I actually gave it its first bath today because of bird poop.
I know.
I could tell your driveway was wet, and that wasn't because it rained.
True story.
I got your number, Casey.
I know what you're up to all day, just sitting there washing that car over and over again.
uh i would if i could meanwhile my car has an entire summer of upstate mud and beach rain dirt on it because it has not been worth washing it because i've been like you know home for a few days and then going to park at the beach for three weeks and it's like it's not i'm not gonna wash my car only to go park it out in the rain for three weeks immediately afterwards yeah i need casey to come to my house because i normally wash my car once a year whether it needs it or not usually usually once a year yeah
usually right before i go to long island so i go to long island with a very clean car but this year we didn't even do the before long island wash so both cars are filthy oh god wait why would you do a why would you do a big car wash right before a long road trip because on the road trip it'll get covered in bugs and stuff well i gotta look good for long island
So you get all that salt water spray onto your car and then you leave it?
Believe me, the salt water spray is the least of your worries.
I'm not driving in the ocean.
There's more salt that gets on my car during the winter than when I go to the island.
I'm dying.
I'm dying.
I was looking for car detailing places around here, but I can't find any good ones.
I'm still looking.
Does it matter if it's good?
If you're only getting a car wash once a year, does it really matter how good it is?
No, it's detailing.
I want to do the interior too.
The interior, we vacuum out.
I just want to do the whole work.
It's not really for my car because my car is actually pretty neat because I'm not a slob and I don't eat in my car and I try to keep the kids under control.
I do wash the bird poop off my car.
I can't have that acidic bird poop sitting there for a long time.
Why do the birds poop on my car?
That's a better question.
If you really want to hear Casey die, one of the best decisions I ever made with car cleanliness was to decide for myself, you know what?
I'm not going to care about the swirl marks that automatic car washes make on my car.
I'm just going to go to automatic car washes whenever I need a car wash, and I'll pay the $12 or whatever it is, and I'll go through the stupid rollers, and if my car gets all swirly in the sun, I don't care because I'm never going to clean it any other way.
I've tried, and I just don't do it.
I just never do it, and I never want to be scared to go through an automatic car wash.
Oh, no, it's going to scratch my cleaner coat.
Oh, no, no.
No, I just want an occasionally clean car that I can get anywhere for $12.
I'm the case of this one.
I've never even been in an automatic car wash while driving under my own car.
I wash it by hand when I need to wash it.
Was it during the M5 era or during the Tesla era that you briefly got into doing your own hand washing and then decided that you hated it?
uh it was the m5 era and it was i was first of all i'm just terrible at hand washing like that as you know because you were there and you had to like fix my work witness yeah like i'm just not very good at it get really short arms like a t-rex it's hard to reach the top in the middle of the roof one of those long uh stick things to get to the middle of the roof so does casey for his giant car you need a ladder to get on top of that thing actually i do need i do need a ladder for that that is true
And also just like like hand washing it like it's so it's I'm not very good at it.
I might be able to get better if I really tried hard and cared really a lot, but I don't.
I'm not going to try that much harder.
It takes a lot of time.
It fills my driveway with suds and makes a huge mess.
And, you know, then like my shoes and my pants get all wet.
But Adam loves it.
for like a few minutes but i'd rather just turn the sprinkler on and have him run through it and then i can stay in the pork stay dry like that's he and you know what you know what adam also loves going through a car wash so that's actually way easier and uh way better so yeah it's just hand washing like
If you're super into it, like you are, Casey, if it's a thing you enjoy, that's one thing.
For me, it's not a thing I enjoy.
It was a means to an end.
Like, oh, I need to wash my car and I can't go through a car wash because my car is too nice and people like Casey will be unhappy if I go through a car wash.
And I just decided, you know what, I'm not going to care about that anymore because I'd much rather have a swirly clear coat car than to have a car that's always dirty because I'm afraid to bring it to a car wash and I don't have time or skill to hand wash it myself.
you know i'm gonna blame mike for my car not being washed this year i've decided because the mental energy of the london trip really took out of me the excess mental energy i had to do because i would wash and wax like i would do both uh before my long island trip and this year just the london trip just took too much out of me i was like i can't i can't bring myself to do that we're just gonna go down there with a dirty car it's all mike's fault
I feel deeply guilty that I've only been washing cars like once a month.
Whereas I used to do it pretty much every, I used to do it pretty much every weekend before kids, before kids, before kids.
And now I haven't, I, I, I, I, if I'm lucky, I get through it once a month.
And even that is a stretch.
Do you do interior when you wash it too?
Uh,
Sometimes.
Probably once every two or three.
Because even with the kids, usually it's not terrible.
They get messier.
I feel like the interior needs it more than the exterior on my car.
Or not on my car.
My wife's car.
I don't know what they do in there.
They bring in rocks and dirt and sand and papers.
I don't even know.
The best is the kids push the door open with their dirty shoes so you get footprints on the doors.
Yeah, I get that.
They're monsters.
and then and then like they're they're disgusting fingers on the window like the window looks like you know someone has sneezed onto it a thousand times and smeared it with their hands because literally that's what they've done like why can't i see through this window anymore oh children are in the backseat it's so gross so casey was there ever a time when you washed your car more often than you changed your sheets
Well, that's not one of my assignments at the home.
More often than your sheets were changed.
Probably, yeah.
I would guess so.
That's pretty impressive.
But he's a night showerer, right?
So it doesn't matter.
Exactly, because I'm always clean.
Because I'm always clean.
In theory, those sheets should be getting cleaner every time you sleep.